NORWEGIAN LOBSTER-FISHERY AND ITS HISTORY. 243 



Oftedahl in his " Efterretninger om Raineso," where he says " that a 

 lot of clay pipes iii a house is a sure sign that the inhabitants have been 

 engaged in lobster-fishing." The price of lobsters was, according to him, 

 in the same year only a cent apiece, as the fisheries were still very pro- 

 ductive, but, nevertheless, the fishermen made a good living, the most 

 fortunate ones selling annually in the parish of Skndesnaes lobsters to 

 the amount of $150 to $175, (Krogs (EkonomisJc statistiske Efterret- 

 ninf/er om Skudesnaes Praestegjaeld, 1816, in the u Budstikken" for 

 1817;) and in the parish of Eenneso the average sum earned by each 

 fisher in 1817 was, according to Oftedahl, $166. From 1815 to 1818, 

 593,000 were on an average exported annually, so that the exports were 

 greater than before the war, although the district was much smaller. 

 On account of the low price of lobsters, caused by the rich fisheries, the 

 exports rose still more, and English companies not only bought lobsters 

 for their own country, but reshipped some of them to France. 



The number of lobsters exported in 1821 and 1822 amounted to over 

 a million a year, and increased still more during the following years, 

 although it was not so large in 1823 and 1824 on account of the unfavor- 

 able weather. From 1825 to 1830, the average number of lobsters ex- 

 ported annually was 1,268,000, and in 1827 and 1828 the highest num- 

 ber was reached, viz, 1,500,000. These large numbers, however, were 

 caused not so much by the fisheries being just as productive or more so 

 in the old lobster-stations, but by the circumstance that new English 

 companies, seeing the great profit to be derived from this trade, com- 

 menced to export lobsters from places from which they never had b^en 

 exported before. Thus lobsters began to be exported in 1S28 from the 

 district of Tonsberg, and from Sondmor in 1826, and during the two fol- 

 lowing years from Molde and Christianssund. The exports from Sta- 

 vanger and Egernsund meanwhile decreased very much, having been 

 reduced to 67,000 per annum in the latter place in 1827 when the exports 

 from the whole of Norway amounted to 1,429,703. After 1830, the 

 exports began to decrease even in the new districts, so that the annual 

 average quantity of lobsters exported during the five years 1831-'35 

 was only 640,000. The only places that kept the lobster-trade alive 

 were the new districts, while all the old ones decreased rapidly, some 

 of them to such a degree that according to the governors' reports the 

 lobster-trade must be considered almost extinct in 1835. 



All this export-trade was carried on by English vessels, except at 

 Farsnnd, from which Mr. Hans G. Lund shipped twenty-four cargoes in 

 1819, twenty-four in 1821, sixteen in 1824, and twelve in 1825, each of 

 them consisting of 4,000 lobsters, partly to London and partly to Hol- 

 land. 



When the attention of the fishermen was directed to this decrease of 

 the lobsters in the old districts, people began to be afraid that the poor 

 fishermen would entirely lose this means of earning a living; and it 

 was supposed that the decrease was chiefly due to the fisheries being 



