238 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



extent, and complaints are made during the following years that the 

 number of lobsters on the coast was decreasing. Count Rantzau, who 

 was governor at the time, issued an order to his officers that they should 

 make suggestions as to what should be done to prevent the decrease of 

 this important fishery, which yielded so large an income to the king and 

 the nation. Judge Lorn, in Lister, in 1737 made a proposition that the 

 fishermen should be forbidden to sell any lobsters measuring less than 

 9 to 10 inches in length, under a fine of about CO cents for every smaller 

 lobster which is sold ; and as the lobster, as far as kuown to him, emits 

 its roe toward the end of June, fishing should cease from June 24 till 

 the end of February. This for those times very remarkable proposi- 

 tion was not supported by others, and was forgotten ; more than one 

 hundred years were to pass before the idea of protecting the lobster 

 during the season when it spawns and sheds its shell was destined to 

 become a reality, and a law passed concerning it. Peasants who had 

 farms near the sea where lobsters were caught, believed that the decrease 

 of these fisheries w T as chiefly caused by the freedom of fishing, and that 

 the lobsters would finally be exterminated. There was consequently great 

 dissatisfaction with the royal decree, which favored the small farmers at 

 the expense of the great ones. They likewise thought that as conse- 

 crating the ground had, with few exceptions, always been respected, 

 owners should also in the future be exclusively permitted to fish lobsters 

 on their gounds, it' these had been consecrated prior to the royal decree. 

 Many government officials seemed to have shared this view, especially 

 when the fisheries began to decrease very much and the peasants found 

 it very difficult to pay their taxes. The judge, in his answer to Gov- 

 ernor Eantzau's inquiry regarding the economical pressure, says ex- 

 pressly " that in assessing the taxes on each farm regard had been had 

 to the lobster-fisheries, which have become exceedingly profitable, for 

 which reason the Dutch and English lobster-vessels frequent our coast. 

 In these regions, mackerel and other important fisheries have belonged 

 to the farms lying near the sea; and as, in the district of Lister, these 

 fisheries have been so entirely destroyed that the inhabitants have not 

 had any use of them for many years, and had to lay aside their nets 

 and seines, which they had bought at a great expense, they now have 

 nothing else to fall back upon for earning a living and paying their 

 taxes but the lobster-fisheries near their ground, since the quantity of 

 grain and hay wdiich they harvest is but very small, and agriculture is, 

 in many places, connected with the greatest difficulties." He would, 

 therefore, propose "that, in order to preserve the fisheries, land-owners 

 may have the exclusive right of fishing on the coast near their grounds 

 and around all those islands, which were formerly used for agriculture, 

 as far as the deep water, but that all the remaining waters should be 

 free to every one." He, therefore, wished to bring back the condition 

 which existed before Judge Leth gave the two farmers mentioned above 

 the exclusive right to fish lobsters near their grounds, which right all 



