CO537-3702 — Page 115

22.11.48 No.7.

MALAYA'S

FLYING

CARP

10,000

ARRIVE EACH FLIGHT

Every flying boat which arrives in Malays from Hong Kong brings with it 10,000 Chinese carp fry to stock Melaya's fresh water fish forms, Malaya's fish farming programme aims at giving the population a fish supply more plentiful than most people in the Far East, or anywhere in the tropics enjoy.

The price of the carp fry, which used to be sold at 2/4d. each, has been greatly reduced as the result of this quick and comparatively inexpensive supply from Hong Kong by air, and fry can now be sold at a price within the monns of peasant fish farmers,

In this experiment, in which Malaya leads the world, experts see possibilities of the supply by air of those fish, which will only breed in South China, to other parts of the world.

The fry are carried in four gallon kerosene tins with an average of 500 fish per tin.

The space above the water in the tin is filled with oxygen and now more than 90 per cent. of these small fry arrive strong and lively. The journey takes only seven hours. Previously the fry came in a five day journey by son in huge wooden tanks and losses in transit were very heavy.

Thus, it is cheaper to fly the fry, which are sold to specialist fry raisers who rear them on coarse flour and tiny plants grown specially for the purpose.

When they reach a length of three to five inches, which they do in a few weeks, they are sold to the fish farmers who raise them to size suitable for mrketing.

The mature carp are a valuable source of protein to the working people of Malaya. The Malayan fisheries department expect the Colony's fish forming industry out in fresh water ponds in the interior of the country

carried to ranch soon a yearly production level of from 5,000 to 7,000 pounds per acre of pond.

The establishment of a Fish Culture Research Centre in Penang will provide valuable data for the extension of this source of food. Trainees will be sent from all over the Colonial Empire to attend practical instruction in fish culture, at the hands of expert fish farmers, and carry this valuable technique back to their own territories.

Britain is already helping the Malayan people in this development by granting £252,000 to establish the research and training contre,

COLONIAL

OFFICE INFORMATION

DEPARTMENT

NOTE:

Isaac Walton called the Carp "The Queen of Rivers, a stately, a good, and a very subtil fish;" and offered this recipe for cooking it:

Scour him, and rub him clean with water and

"Take a Carp, alive if possible; salt, but scale him not: then open him; and put him, with his blood and his liver, which you must save when you open him, into a small pot or kettlc: then take sweet marjoram, thyme, and parsley, of each half a handful; a sprig of rosemary, and another of savoury; bind them into two or three small bundles, and put them in your Carp, with four or five whole onions, 20 pickled oysters, and three anchovies. Then pour upon your Carp as much claret wine as will only cover him; and season your claret well with salt, loves, and mace, and the rinds of oranges and lemons. That done, cover your Pot set it on a quick fire till it be sufficiently boiled. Than take out the Carp; and ay it, with the broth, into the dish; and pour upon it a quarter of a pound of the best fresh butter, melted, and beaten with half a dozen spoonfuls of the broth, the yolks of two or three eggs, and some of the herbs shred: garnish your dish with lemons,

and so serve it up.7

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