64 APPARENT EFFECT OF THE WAR 



predict ' good years ' and ' had years '. If, as is likely, the 

 principal destruction of a brood takes place after the eggs have 

 been cast adrift, the object may not be attained by this means, 

 though the investigation will doubtless be useful. 



In a second communique, published in the Fishing News of 

 17th July 1920, the Ministry of Agriculture further discusses 

 its investigations, and the first two cruises of its research vessel, 

 the J. and S. Miles. The first of these cruises was a trawling 

 expedition along the line from the Leman Banks to the Haaks 

 Lightship, followed by a search far small plaice on the Dutch 

 coast. The second was a transplantation experiment. 



The Ministry asks the question : Why are the plaice caught 

 now bigger than they used to be before the war ? 



Is it because the fish have had time to grow ? The Ministry 

 hesitates to accept this explanation. A quite moderate-sized 

 plaice, they say, before the war was five or six years old. And 

 there are now very few small plaice among the marketable fish. 

 It is in the official opinion not probable^ that the plaice have 

 grown to a larger size in a shorter time, because there are more 

 plaice, and so there must also have been increased competition 

 for food. Moreover, the Danish investigator Johansen has found 

 that plaice of a given size are now older than formerly — and 

 that their growth is actually slower than it was before the war. 

 As a possible but not very helpful alternative, the Ministry 

 suggests that on some grounds the distribution has changed — 

 ' large plaice replacing smaller and younger ones '. 



The mine-fields have protected medium and large plaice from 

 capture. Vessels have been unable to fish among the mines. 

 The grounds have been closed. Have the surplus full-grown 

 plaice from these closed grounds migrated to the other feeding- 

 grounds and so re-stocked the North Sea ? The question 

 remains unanswered, as does the question : Where are the 

 small fish ? 



The J. and S. Miles is seeking for answers to both questions. 



' But it is at least possible that a number of fish have, in the words of 

 Herubel, 'peacefully grown old,' and that this 'first reserve' will rapidly 

 be exhausted, as has been the universal experience on virgin grounds. Moreover 

 it is not safe to draw definite conclusions, on the data available, as to the supply 

 of food for the fish. The food supplies vary enormously from year to year, and 

 their fluctuations are governed by conditions other than the inter-tribal 

 bickerings of mankind ! 



