9a 



I propose, then, that Government should obtain a small bat 

 complete canning plant, for Iian-l work only at first, that this should 

 be installed at the Experimental Station and that students and work- 

 men should be taught no*} merely the mechanical art of making and 

 closing cans but the main industry of treating the fish from the boat 

 to the cooker. The cost is not great and I can readily ascertain 

 everything in Eui'ope this summer. 



194. The seventh immediate object of the station will be obser- 

 vational ; the station will be utilised as a minor marine laboratory 

 for studying questions of importance relating to the food-fishes of the 

 coast. We know practically nothing accurate at present of the habits 

 food, habitat, spawning periods and places, etc., of the various classes 

 of fish or of the causes which bring the shoals to shore or keep them 

 away ; the nature, abundance or paucity of fish food (plankton) in the 

 waters is wholly unstudied, though important as a test or sign of the 

 nature and abundance of fish life. An observational section will be 

 able to utilise and control the statistics now furnished regarding the 

 catches, appearance and disappearance, etc., of fish by the fish curing- 

 yard returns (No. 11) which will then become valuable, as well as the 

 information now being collected in the new " Information books " at 

 the same yards, and will itself compile full and accurate information 

 on the general statistics, conditions, facts, and needs both of the 

 industry and of the trade. It will also study the backwaters of the 

 coast with a view to develop them as local food producers readily 

 available without sea risks and at periods when sea-going is impossible • 

 at places like Cochin one can hardly fail of being struck by the 

 potentialities of these large sheets of water, and the lessons learnt at 

 this station will be available on the East Coast for use in the vast 

 lagoon called the Pulicat lake. 



195. There is much more work to propose, but, for the present, 

 the above will amply suffice for the West Coast station. Nor will I 

 at present, unless so desired by Government, propose other coastal 

 stations, leaving that for further reports. Certain aspects of the fresh 

 fish trade will also be left over till 1 make, shortly, my East Coast 

 report. 



196. Pisciculture. — But in the method of Indian pisciculture 

 Japan suggests certain cheap and immediately possible methods, open 

 to the poorest man who owns a patch of water, to every villao-e which 

 has a tank or pond, to the owners of many thousands of acres of 

 paddy fields, and to the controllers of thousands of acres of freshwater 

 reservoirs and canals, and in this matter, little Government aid, or aid 

 costing but little, will be required. Under the head of carp culture 

 it will have been seen that, in from 4 to 5 months at most, carp of 

 li to 2 inches long placed in the Japanese paddy fields will increase 

 to 8 or 10 inches and though still immature are quite marketable, 



