| Year. | Cases. | Year. | Cases. | |
| 1871 | 35,000 | 1876 | 429,000 | |
| 1872 | 44,000 | 1877 | 393,000 | |
| 1873 | 103,000 | 1878 | 412,924 | |
| 1874 | 244,000 | 1879 | 440,000 | |
| 1875 | 291,000 | 1880 | 540,000 |
Each case contains four dozen tins of one pound each, or two dozen of two pounds.
The total output of the Pacific coast for 1880 is estimated at 680,000 cases.
SALMON.Besides the Columbia River, which is the main source of supply, other Oregon rivers are laid under tribute. The Rogue River, the Alsea, Umpqua, Coquille, Nehalem, Siletz, and Yaquina Rivers are all salmon-yielding streams. The system followed is generally known. The proprietor erects his cannery on the edge of the river, generally on piles driven into the mud. The cannery consists of a large warehouse for laying out the fresh salmon as soon as caught. Next comes a building fitted with large knives for cutting up the salmon into the proper length for canning, and boilers in which the cans or tins are boiled. Then come the packing and storing houses. That the undertaking need be on a large scale may be judged from the fact that they may have to deal with three or four thousand salmon at a time, as the produce of one night's take, and these salmon averaging twenty-five pounds in weight.
The canneries make their own tins, one man, by the aid of ingenious machinery, putting together fifteen hundred tins in a day.
The boats and nets belong to the cannery. The fishermen are paid by the fish they bring in: one third belongs to the cannery in right of boat and nets; the other two thirds are bought from the fishermen at fifty cents a fish.
The importance to Oregon of the trade is shown by the proceeds for the year ending August 1, 1879, from the 412,924 cases exported being $1,863,069.
The tin for the salmon, and also for the canned beef which is prepared in several of the canneries, is all imported. The imports for 1879 amounted to 54,520 boxes, costing from $8 to $9 a box.
The number of salmon ascending some of these streams to spawn is almost incredible.
Both the Siletz and the Yaquina Rivers yield two kinds: one a heavy, thick-shouldered, red-tinged, hooknosed fellow, which is never eaten by white men when it has passed up out of tidal waters; the other a slim, graceful, bright-scaled fish, known as the silver salmon. Of this last there are two runs in the year: one in April and May, the other in October and November.