CH. IX] THE PRODUCTIVITY OF THE SEA .185 



would yield results still greater. I can only quote the results 

 of one such fishery, but these are very instructive. At Morecambe 

 on the coast of Lancashire there is a large area of foreshore on 

 which " over-production " takes place ; that is to say, enormous 

 numbers of mussels are spawned, so that there is not room for 

 all the molluscs to grow and great numbers remain permanently 

 stunted and dwarfed, reproducing nevertheless so that the over- 

 crowding of the mussel-beds persists. Formerly great masses 

 of these small mussels were carted away by farmers and applied to 

 the land as manure. Then the Fishery Committee (in some 

 ignorance, apparently, of the problem with which they had to 

 deal) stepped in and prevented the " removal from the fishery " 

 of mussels which were under a certain size, which they fixed 

 by regulation. So the depletion of the beds ceased and as a 

 consequence they came to contain enormous numbers of mussels 

 which, being stunted and under the legal size, had absolutely 

 no economic value. The Fishery Authority now proceeded to 

 apply the logical complement to its restrictive legislation and 

 encouraged the fishermen to " transplant " the undersized shellfish. 

 Great numbers of the molluscs were therefore removed from 

 the overcrowded beds and re-deposited in a locality — " Ringhole," 

 where the conditions were known to be such as to favour the 

 growth of the shellfish ^ 



Now the great theoretical interest of this experiment was 

 overlooked so that there is, unfortunately, not so much data 

 regarding it as one would wish for. I attempt an estimate 

 here which is probably a fairly approximate one. I may observe 

 that the experiment was a very decided success in a commercial 

 sense and was warmly welcomed by the fishermen, who derived 

 great benefit from its results. In April 1905, some 347 tons 

 of dwarfed mussels were taken from the overcrowded beds and put 

 down in Ringhole. The fishing of this area was then prohibited 

 by mutual agreement among the fishermen until November of the 

 same year, when the transplanted shellfish were taken for the 

 markets. 



^ See Scott and Baxter, A)iu. Rept, Lancashire Sea Fisheries Laby., Liverpool, 

 for 1905, for an interesting account of these operations. See also Superintendenf s 

 Reports Lancashire a)id Western Sea Fisheries Committee, 1906-7, Preston. 



