190 FISH CULTURE. 



in April, and were twenty-one days going out ; and 

 returned in August, nine days coming home. If the 

 weather had been favourable in the commencement, 

 they might have completed their cargoes in two 

 months. This is the way to make fishermen, and to 

 form seamen. The poverty of the men at Dingle 

 and other places on the west and south-west coasts 

 make them able only to fit out canoes, to the almost 

 extinction of the sprit-boat and the hooker. The 

 consequence is, that the herring fishery is much on 

 the decline. And what can this wretched system 

 avail, with their few hundred fathoms of spilliard 

 line and the sceltane of hooks, on those abundant 

 fishing-grounds ? It is not that they are unequal as 

 seamen and fishermen, but it is their poverty, and 

 the absence of all encouragement to fisheries. Compare 

 this with the vessels that fish the coast of Ice- 

 land, Norway, the Orkneys, and the Well-bank, the 

 Dogger-bank, and the Broad Forties — vessels ably 

 manned, well found, and with twelve miles of lines, 

 who fish the Dogger-bank in the North Sea, 150 

 miles from land, remaining months on the ground at 

 anchor or hove-to, weathering heavy seas and heavy 

 gales. A fine vessel I saw at Greenwich, of sixty-six 

 tons, had eleven miles of long lines, with hand-lines 

 and nets, had ample stowage between decks for salt 



