52 COMPAEATIYE PEODUOTIVITY OF 



It must be remomberecl that these figures reflect only the 

 condition of the main plaice fishery in a single year ; that about 

 8 per cent, of the catch was landed from North Sea grounds 

 which were not specified ; that the collectors of statistics are 

 not always told ' the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ' 

 by trawler skippers ; and that the trade sorts its fish into 

 ' large,' ' medium,' and ' small ' on no uniform or exact system. 

 The table, in fact, makes possible only a very rough comparison 

 of the various areas. 



With this proviso it can be noted : 



1. That the southern portion of the North Sea (the ' belly ' 

 and ' cod end ' in fact of a sea which is shaped very much like 

 a trawl-net !) produced 17,979 tons out of 21,731, or 82 per cent, 

 of the catch by the big vessels.^ The whole area (of 36,183 

 square miles) lies roughly between the 10 and 30-fathom lines. 

 It is bounded to the south by a line between Cape Grisnez and 

 the South Foreland ; on the north (roughly) by the Dogger and 

 the Great Fisher Banks ; on the north-west by the ' small-plaice 

 grounds ' ; and elsewhere by the 10-fathom line. It is probably 

 true that some 70 per cent, of the plaice landed from this area 

 were mature fish. 



2. That the ' small-plaice grounds ' off the Danish, German, 

 and Dutch coasts (the A3 and B4 areas) produced between 

 them 1,455 tons, or 6 per cent, of the North Sea catch. 



If these small-plaice grounds had been closed altogether to 

 trawling by English vessels, therefore, there would have been 

 just 1,455 tons less plaice on the English market, of which 

 32 tons would have been ' large 'fish, 256 tons ' medium ' fish, 

 and 1,149 tons ' small ' fish. Allowing 4,200 ' small ' fish to 

 the ton, it is clear that complete closure of these grounds would 

 have saved some 4,800,000 small plaice. These represented 

 32,000 ' boxes ', of 5i stone each, in 1913. They sold at about 

 £18 per ton, i.e. -over £20,600. If 4,000,000 of those small fish 

 had been transplanted to the Dogger when they were 9 inches 

 long and just over 4 ounces in weight in June and September 

 1913, some 2,956,800 fish, averaging 14 inches in length and 

 1 lb. in weight, and weighing 1,320 tons, would have been 

 available for capture in April 1914. They would then have 

 been worth £39 a ton, or £51,480. In addition to this, about 

 277 tons would have been caught on the Dogger and sold as 

 * small ' fish at about £5,000, in the summer and autumn of 

 1913. 



^ The fish from ' C 3 ' are caught practically exclusively in the winter when 

 the plaice have congregated for spawning. 



