36 THE UNAPPRECIATED FISHER POLE 
season of “fresh” pilchards, whilst there is likewise a local 
sale of cured fish. 
Having said so much about the seine nets, we may now 
refer to the drift-net fishing, which forms a prominert 
feature of Cornwall industry. We do not know the exact 
number of the fishing population that find employment in 
Cornwall in connection with the pilchard, mackerel, and 
general fisheries, but there are 624 boats of all sizes, valued 
at £368,000. Some account of the drift-net fishing of 
Cornwall, so far as its industrial aspects are concerned, is 
contained in a recent official report of an inquiry, and from 
that blue book we are indebted for the materials of the follow- 
ing summary. On the drift-net fishery boats are employed 
varying in size from half-decked luggers of 15 tons and 26- 
foot keel, engaged in the pilchard fishery, to full-decked 
luggers of 30 tons and 46-foot keel or more, employed in 
the mackerel fishery. The pilchard drivers rarely go far 
from shore, and always return to their port within 24 hours. 
Mackerel drivers follow their fish into the deep sea, and 
sometimes fish more than 30 leagues from the nearest land ; 
and as these are the boats principally affected by the in- 
quiry referred to above, the remainder of this memorandum 
must be read as referring to them. Each of their voyages 
is usually completed within 24 hours when on the home 
fishery ; but sometimes, when several boats are in concert, 
many remain out for a week at a time, one of the fleet 
running for port each morning with the night’s catch of the 
whole lot. 
These boats are owned by individuals, and never by a 
company. They are manned by crews of about seven men 
and a boy, raised from the fishing villages from which they 
hail, all well known to each other, and very frequently related ; 
