1922] MADRAS PEARL FISHERIES 153 



Iandmarking of the beds, the elaboration of a scheme for the 

 culture of oysters — cultching and transplantation chiefly, the recruit- 

 ment of an adequate diving labour force prior to any fishery and, 

 if possible, the means for the mechanical raising of oysters by 

 means of dredges and trawls. 



Control of the chank fishery should be placed with him. He 

 would elaborate fishing methods, experimenting especially with a 

 suitable modification of the oyster dredge; if successful, he would 

 take steps to ensure the adoption of such improved methods by the 

 native chank fishers. He would also investigate the feasibility of 

 the artificial hatching and breeding of chanks-a promising depar- 

 ture that opposes few difficulties to success. 



Other shellfish of economic value are the Window-pane oyster 

 (Placuna placenta) and the Edible oyster. Large quantities of the 

 former have been fished in a landlocked bay in Ceylon and the 

 lease of this fishery has yielded considerable sums to the revenue 

 in the past owing to the fact that these molluscs yield abundance 

 of seed pearls. In the Madras Presidency search should be made 

 for beds of sufficient size to be worth exploiting. 



Beche-de-mer is an industry as yet little developed on the 

 Indian coast and one susceptible of considerable enlargement. 



In the economic investigation and control of ordinary sea and 

 fresh-water fishing, the field for the exercise of the beneficient 

 labours of a Fishery Department is boundless. It is not necessary 

 here to enter on these desirable developments in detail ; I will 

 content myself with pointing out that the fish supply at many 

 localities on the coast of the Madras Presidency might be greatly 

 increased by the introduction of new methods; that a wide field 

 for remunerative trawling awaits the capitalist on banks as yet 

 scarcely touched by the native fishermen ; that much help could be 

 given to the latter by a fishery expert in teaching improved methods 

 of net tanning and by experimenting with new fibres, such as 

 ramie, for the production of nets cheaper and stronger and of better 

 lasting properties than the materials now in use; that the cause of 

 public health would be greatly served by the oversight that would 

 be given to fish-curing yards. 



A general survey of present fishery methods would be one of 

 the results of the working of the department suggested, and from 

 the facts ascertained it would be possible to consolidate present 



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