TEANSPLAXTATION AS A REMEDY 49 



The experiments showed that the rate of recapture woukl 

 depend upon the date at which transplantation took place. 

 In April and May the Bank was heavily fished ; from June to 

 September there was little trawling. 



First Scientific Proj)osals, 1905 



Professor Garstang worked out an invaluable ' Forecast of 

 the Commercial Results of Transplantation '. He prepared 

 a table to show the estimated yield and^ value within the first 

 year of a stock of one million small plaice transplanted to the 

 Dogger Bank (A) in the middle of iVpril, and (B) at the end of 

 May, as follow^s : 



A. Number available 



The conclusion w^as that transplantation on a commercial 

 scale should be carried out in June after the close of the spring 

 fishing on the Dogger. 1,000,000 fish thus transplanted would 

 give a yield of 1,388 cwt., or 11,104 stones, valued in 1905 at 

 £1,369 (as this is written in September 1920 they w^ould be 

 worth £5,000 at Billingsgate) ; and this would leave nearly 

 750,000 plaice in the North Sea, all of the best marketable size 

 and weight, to be caught the following year. This represents 

 at least 55,000 stones (a ' box ' is about 5J stone) of large 

 plaice, which even on a glutted market should fetch £29,000 

 on the quayside in September 1920. 



Garstang considers that the figures show that the proceeds of 

 transplantation would cover all expenses within a year from 

 each undertaking. In order roughly to test this assertion in 

 1920 it would perhaps be legitimate to treble Mr. Douglas's 

 estimate of the cost of five years' successive transplantations. 

 If this cost were approximately £30,000, and if it produced an 



2497 't. 



