59 



So far the commune has preferred to pursue a 

 middle course — to improve the conditions in the better 

 class of their fish farms and concurrently to undertake 

 the reclamation of the sections less favourable for fish 

 rearing, so that over 3,000 hectares of what was water 

 surface at the time of Coste's visit have now passed 

 permanently into agricultural occupation. The process 

 is likely to be continued until the whole inner half of the 

 lagoon, lying from 10 to 20 kilometres distant from the 

 sea, shall come under tillage, leaving the seaward half to 

 continue as fish farms. 



Conclusions. 



Comacchio furnishes to the fish culturist many object 

 lessons particularly valuable in India where the efficient 

 utilization of extensive tidal backwaters analogous to 

 that of Comacchio is one of the principal problems now 

 before the Madras Fishery Department. These demons- 

 trations fall into two divisions, those that are lessons in 

 methods that are admirable and those that are instances 

 of faulty and defective procedure to be carefully avoided 

 or materially modified and improved. 



In this connection it is necessary to emphasize the 

 fact that the lagoon of Comacchio is in reality not an 

 establishment of fish culture properly so-called ; it is 

 merely a complex system of lagoon fishing whereby the 

 fish which enter as fry have their escape barred, to be 

 captured en masse as successive broods reach maturity, 

 a system handed down without appreciable alteration 

 through fifteen centuries. In the middle ages it appears 

 to have given much greater returns than the average for 

 the past two hundred years, and present methods call 

 for material modification if the yield of fish per acre is to 

 be increased to adequate proportions. At present the 

 yield does not average more than 50 lb. per hectare or 

 about 20 lb. per acre, a wholly inadequate rate consider- 

 ing the known potentialities of water areas cultivated on 

 scientific principles. Empirical as are the methods of the 

 Arcachon fish farmers, they actually produce per acre 

 twelve times the weight of fish yielded by Comacchio for 

 a similar area, the average of two years' yield in France 

 being 608J lb. per hectare annually. 



