THEIR ROUND OF LIFE AND LABOUR. 47 
THE NORTH SEA FISHERS—TfH: CObD=MEN: 
Angling on a wholesale scale—A fishing line eight miles long—The 
value of live Codfish—Small percentage of fish to hooks—Cost of 
the cod smacks—Remuneration of line fishers—Bait : its importance 
and scarcity—Mussels and Mussel culture—Fishermen of all work 
—The shell-fish fisheries, their money value. 
ANOTHER branch of industry which yields employment to 
a large number of fishermen, and incidentally, in Scotland 
at least, to their wives and families, is line-fishing for cod 
and other fishes. This is a comparatively simple although 
probably a very ancient mode of fishing—it is angling on a 
wholesale scale. On board of the codmen we usually find a 
larger crew than we do on board of the trawlers, and while 
out on a voyage, the men, ten or eleven, find plenty of 
work ; in long line fishing, for instance, it is a serious labour 
of itself to bait the hooks. A suite of lines is 7200 fathoms 
in length, or about eight miles long, and it carries the 
amazing number of 4680 hooks, which have to be carefully 
baited with whelks, or, as in Scotland, mussels, of which 
mollusk one Scottish fishing port alone requires over five 
millions annually. As the hooks are baited, which is a 
work of time, giving employment to the whole of the crew 
when not otherwise accomplished, they are very carefully 
laid aside on trays ready for use, each tray containing so 
many pieces. A large number of separate lines are used, 
each being fastened together as a string. At about half- 
tide the line is shot by being carefully paid overboard so 
