55 



Coste in his desire to exhibit the Comacchio establish- 

 ment as a model of everything excellent in marine 

 fish-farming, took this means to explain away, in part, the 

 extremely poor yield of fish per acre of water surface as 

 exhibited by the official statistics. 



The central administration has the technical advice 

 of a trained engineer who supervises the general 

 mechanical arrangements, particularly the management 

 of the sluices and the reclamation of land from the 

 lagoon. Of late years it has become evident that 

 permanent deterioration of the fishery can only be 

 prevented by the assistance of science, and so the 

 engineer to the administration is now required to have 

 biological knowledge as well as an engineering training. 

 The late Engineer, Signor Samaritani, appreciated the 

 absolute necessity for a thorough biological knowledge of 

 the laooon and its inhabitants and laboured long but 

 without success to gain the assistance of Government for 

 the establishment of a biological station in the lagoon. 



In cases of sudden crisis, the administration follows 

 the excellent custom of calling to its council not only its 

 engineer but also the working superintendents (fat tori) 

 of the different valli, and any old servants whose length 

 of experience entitles them to consideration. 



Revenue. 



The annual net profit derived from the fishery has 

 been and still is subject to enormous fluctuations owing 

 to the alleged impossibility of warding oft the evil effects 

 of series of abnormally hot dry seasons which occur 

 irregularly from time to time. Fortunately the cycles of 

 prosperity have usually been much more prolonged than 

 those which are not remunerative, and there is every 

 reason to believe that the years of unremunerative fishing 

 will be largely curtailed now that the. empirical methods 

 of the past are being submitted to the touchstone of 

 science, which by experiment and deduction has already 

 effected a measure of amelioration. When Pope Clement 

 VIII in 1598 seized the lands pertaining to the ducal 

 house of Este, Comacchio was included, and this family 

 claimed that they derived annual revenue from the fishery 

 of 500,000 lire. These figures are possibly exaggerated 

 as in 1587, it appears that the Estes had farmed it out 



