50 
closed, ‘greater powers—they €ven aspire to close the whole 
Irish Sea—and more money, to be as I think I have shown, 
hopelessly squandered. | 
“What can you expect, however, when the affairs are 
directed by a gentleman who after some years’ experience 
can- deliberately and cones put such a eRe eee as this 
forward : — | 
. 3rd. «When the time comes, as it probably will, 
when it will be cheaper and surer to farm fish than’ to 
shunt them, when fish are bred, reared, and fed up for 
market, then fish food will have to be accurately 
ascertained and carefully cultivated, and all such 
statistics as those we are now accumulating will be of 
value, and receive their proper application.” 
‘Certainly the wildest scheme which ever was floated 
6n the Stock Exchange is the soberest common sense 
compated with such a proposal, as any one will see who 
will make a few calculations, and yet the lives and 
destinies of our fishers and their families are practically at 
the mercy of this scientific dreamer. And this is only one 
instance. There are plenty of equally absurd peopoea e in 
the Sea Fishery reports. 
Again, forty or fifty years since there was a most im- 
portant herring fishery in Morecambe Bay. I well 
remember the time more than 200 boats fished regularly 
every night during the season right in the bay, almost close 
up to the Wyre light. So 'important was it that there was 
