THE PLAICE GKOUNDS 53 



The Effect of Closure accompanied hij Transplantation 



80 that Ijy closing the small-plaice grounds and transplanting 



4,000,000 small plaice from these grounds to the Dogger, the 



net gain in value and weight to the plaice fishery could have 



been thus expressed : 



£ 

 By 277 tons small plaice caught on Dogger 1913 .... 5,000 

 By 1,320 tons large plaice available 1914 . . . . . 51,000 



56,000 



Less potential price of same if all marketed in 1913 from small-plaice 



grounds 20,(300 



Gross gain by closure and transplantation . . . 35,400 



And from this, of course, it would be necessary to deduct the 

 cost of transplantation. 



If, on the other hand, 4,800,000 small plaice, averaging 

 9 J inches and 4 oz., had been left to grow on the small-plaice 

 grounds in 1913 they would have averaged about 11 J inches 

 by May of 1914, and the increase to the stock of fish in the 

 North Sea would have been, though much less than the growth 

 on the Dogger, still considerable. 



3. The remaining considerable plaice grounds produced fish 

 as follows : 



Tons. 

 The Dogger Bank (B 1) 686 



The 20 to 30-fathom grounds 1 west of the Dogger (C 1) . . .686 



The huge 30-40-fathom grounds ^ between the Dogger and the ' Long 



Forties ' (including the latter) (D 1) 433 



Only a very small proportion of the landings in this region 

 consisted of ' small ' fish. It was this area (and particularly 

 the adjacent ports of Aberdeen, Hull, and Grimsby) which 

 stood to gain by the closure of the small plaice grounds (and 

 still more by the stocking of the Dogger Bank with transplanted 

 fish), no less than the grounds in the ' Southern Bight '. 



4. No other ground produced 200 tons of plaice, and the 

 table shows that in the rest of the North Sea plaice formed for 

 the most part an incidental and unimportant proportion of 

 a catch of other fish. 



* These grounds are in the northern portion of the North Sea ; and to these 

 figures it would be necessary to add the catch of Scottish trawlers, which is not 

 ascertainable. 



'C^V-o^"^^;, 



