27 
The Professor writes lightly and cheerily about enclos- 
ing a space ‘‘ with wattles,” but to shut shrimps in, especially 
in their early stages, the fence would have to be the finest 
gauze. Has the learned Professor ever calculated what 
rearing and feeding our shrimp harvest would cost? Take 
the piece of ground alone which he has been instrumental in 
so lightly closing off Blackpool—closed as being an insignifi- 
cant matter tothe fishermen. Taking the boats fishing there 
as 80 (he says 70 to go), in order to make shrimping pay, the 
boats must take at least 40 quarts each per day. At 4d. 
per quart this would only leave 13s. 4d. per day to pay 
two men and wear and tear of boats and nets, so I think 
it a low estimate. Ifthe boats fished five days a week for 
40 weeks this would mean 640,000 quarts of shrimps from 
this bit alone. How are we to enclose an area like this, 
and artificially feed such a stock as to yield a crop of this 
kind? If it were possible to erect sea walls to enclose 
areas sufficient to rear our shrimp crop, the revenues 
of Lancashire would not pay for them, and it would take 
an army of men to catch and provide food. Speaking 
as an engineer, even if we were prepared to sink untold 
millions in such a project it could not be done. The 
tides would laugh at such utter folly, and where the 
profit could come ‘in, when Nature has provided so 
bountiful a harvest for the mere taking of it, is beyond 
my comprehension. 
