25 



44. It was stated that several private culture farms have resulted 

 from the example of this branch station so that it has been useful in 

 the way of advice, experiment, example and supply. There is very 

 much of interest for Madras in these piscicultural stations, and one 

 lesson is the way in which small culture farms may be profitably 

 worked in Madras districts by small ponds for which water may as in 

 Bengal, be bought, if necessary from irrigation sources ; abundance 

 of cheap fish food may be collected by children from the fields, and if 

 silk culture can be combined, as in Mysore and in British territory 

 above ghauts (KoUegal, etc.), the pupae will form a large fish food 

 addition. 



The total cost of this experimental station and branch in the year 

 ending Maich 1905, was Rs. 27,385. 



45. Another station, Isohama, in the Ibaraki district on the Pacific 

 ooast, was inspected. This was started only in 1 900 ; special attention 

 is here paid to improving the capture and preservation of fish, and to 

 the culture of carp at a separate branch station. As regards capture : 

 the staff has newly introduced from another district (Chiba) the 

 method of catching bonito in a drift net instead of by line : the net is 

 a thin cotton net of about 2 inch mesh against which the bonito, a 

 swift large fish, strikes and entangles itself fas I have seen porpoises 

 caught by accident in mackerel nets on the Madras West Coast) ; this 

 method has now been taught to local fishermen by the station staff all 

 of whom are graduates from the Imperial Fishery Institute. A motor- 

 boat is now being built for the station ; size, 50' x 13' x 8' with a 

 "Dan" kerosine motor; sloop rigged, fully decked, live wells for 

 bait, ice and fish hold, etc. ; capstan and windlass but manual only ; 

 motor can be disconnected when sailing ; cost Es. 1 1,700 complete with 

 2,000 fathoms of drift net ; intended primarily as a drifter, she will 

 also be fitted for and with an otter trawl, as the bottom between 20 

 and 70 fathoms, but not elsewhere, is suitable for trawling ; she will 

 do deep sea work and stay out ten days or more. An ordinary local 

 bonito boat of from 30 to 50 feet in length costs Rs. 1,500 complete, 

 is lightly built and quite open, and takes a crew of 12 to 30 men • 

 these are usually built by small capitalists who hire a crew with whom 

 they work; borrowed money costs 10 or 12 per cent, and is usually 

 worked off by a share of the catches. 



46. The station has good buildings including a useful museum 

 with models of apparatus, such as driers, new forms of nets, etc. The 

 cannery is complete as usual and manufactures, inter alia, special 

 products for export, such as white fish in tomato, sardines in oil, fish 

 pudding in tins, that is. boiled white fish rai?:ed with boiled potato, 

 pounded together, placed in cylindrical tins, soldered up, and boiled 

 for an hour in ordinary boilers ; then pinholed. reclosed, and processed 



1) 



