Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1883-07-21
THE wORLD,s.FIsH SUPPLY.
The Sea Compared to the Farm.

The Sea Compared to the Farm.
Prof Huxley before the London Fisheries Conference
1t Is satisfactory to reflect that the sea which
| shuts Us In at the same time opens up to us sup
plies of food of almost unlimited extent. In re-
ference to the relation which the fisheries bore
to the total supply. of food of those who had
easy access to the sea he quoted the following
paragraph from the report ofthe Fisheries Com
missioners, 1885, The produce of the sea around
our coasts bears a far higher proportion to that
OF the land than Is generally imagined. The
most frequented fishing grounds are much
| more prolific of food than the same extent OF
the richest land. Once in year an acre of good
| land, carefully titled. produces a ton of corn or
two or three hundredweght OF meat or cheese.
The same area at the bottom of the sea In the
best fishing grounds yields q greater weight of
food to the perseyering fisherman every week
| In the year. Five vessels belonging to the same
source In single nights fishing brought in
seventeen tons weight of fish. an amount of
wholesome food equal in weight to that of SO
vessels covered during the nights fishing
could not have exceeded an area of ffty acres .
My colleagues and l made this statement a coed
many years ago. l have recently tried to dis
cover what yield may oe expected, not from the
best natural fishing grounds, but from pisci-
cultural operations: At Comachio. close TO the
em5ouchure of the Pc. in the Adriatic. there is
great shallow lagoon which covers some "a. GOO
acres. and in which pisciculture has been prac-
used IN very ingenious manner for many CEN
turtles. The fish cultivated are eels. gray null
let. atherines, and soles; and. according to the
figures given by NJ COste, the average Weld for
sixteen years from 1913 to 1918 amounted to S
cWt. per acre-that Is to say, double the weight
OF cheese or meat which could have been obtain
ed from the same area Of good pasture land in
the same time. Thus the seas around rs are
not only important sources of food, but thev
may be made still more important by the artif-
cal development OF their resources
He presently turned to the question whether
fisheries are exhaustible, and, If So, whether
anything can be done to prevent their exhaus-
ton. He did not think it possible to give a
categorical answer. There were fisheries and
fisheries; but he had no doubt that there were
some fisheries which were inexhaustible. Instan-
cling the salmon rivers, he said it was quite
clear that those who would protect the fish must
address themselves to man, who was reachable
by force OF law, and that it not only might be
possible, but 1t was actually practicable to so
regulate the action of man with regard to a
salmon river that no such process of extirpation
should take place. But If we turned to the
great sea fisheries such as cod and herring fish,
cries. the case was entirely altered. Those who
nave watched these fisheries offthe Lofoden Isles
on etle coast OF Norway, say that the coming in
OF the cod in January and February is one of the
most wonderful sights in the world; that the
cod form what Is called a ''cod mountain. ~
which may occupy vertical height of from 20
to 80 fathoms that is to say 100 to $50 feetn the
sea and that these shoals of enormous extent keen
On coming in in great numbers from the westward
and southwark for period of something like two
months. The number of these fish is SO prodig-
ious that Professor Sars the most admirable
authority, from whom / quote these details.
tells as that when the fishermen let down their
loaded lines they feel the weight knocking
against the bodies of the Goldfish for a long time
before it gets to the bottom. have made a
computation, with the details of which l will
not trouble you, which leads to this result. that
If you allow the fish each Of them four feet
in length ana let them be yard apart. there
will be in square mile Of such shoals something
like l2O, 600 fish. l believe am greatly I'M
Devastating the actual number, for believe the
fish lie much Closer but would beg your at
tention to the bearing of this underestimate
because do not know that the I.ofoden fishery
has ever yielded more than thirty million fish
in good season; and. SO far as ! am aware. the
whole of the Norwegian fisheries, great as they
are, do not yield more than seventy million
soyou will observe that one of these multitude
nous shoals would be sufficient to supply all the
fisheries OF Norway completely. and to leave a
large balance behind And that is not all.
These facts about the COZ apply also to the
herring; for not only Professor Sars, but all OBJ
servers who are familiar with the life of the cod
when it has attained considerable size, tell us
that the main food of the cod Is the herring, so
that these 10000, 900 OF cod in the square mile
have to be fed with herring, and it is easy to
see. if you allow them only one herring a day,
that the quantity Of herring which they will
want in the course of a week will be something
like $40, O00,O 600. Now, believe the whole Nor
wegan herring fishery has never reached the
figure of 4OO000.000 tish-that is to say, one-haf
the fish which this great shoal of Goldfish eats in
week would supply the whole OF the Norwe-
gian fisheries. On these and other grounds it
seemed to him that this class Of fisheries-cod,
herring, pilchard mackerel, etc.-might be re-
garded as ineXhaustible. But he should not
venture to say this of the whole of the sea fish
eries-ot the oyster fisheries, tor example,