During early times, the oil sardine, along with other sardine, was used only for manuring coconut plantations and tobacco fields, but by the middle of the last century when there was scarcity of animal oils, attention was directed to the oil sardine for the extraction of its oil. This was done in a primitive and crude way by allowing the fish to putrefy in dug-out canoes. The high price prevalent at that time sustained this industry up to the end of the century, when it declined owing to the erratic appearance of oil sardine along the Coast . An improved method of oil and guano manufacture by boiling the sardines in cauldrons over fire and pressing them in coir mat bags in indigenous screw presses s introduced in 1908 and it produced oil of good quality and guano of good manorial value. This success led to the opening of a number of small factories along the 240 mile Coasts of South Kanara and Malabar and the peak figure of 647 factories, with an output of 32,000 tons of guano and 12,000 tons of oil was reached during the 1922-23 season. Malpractices in the manufacture of oil and guano, together with the capricious nature of the fishery in subsequent years and its complete failure during the last decade, have resulted in the closing down of almost all the factories.