8 



to dry than that it should be piled and left in bulks to be 

 gradually matured. Hence the reason for varying weather 

 being desirable. 



The quantity of dried codfish produced during a season 

 averages 75,000 to 80,000 tons per annum. The value 

 aggregates about a million and a quarter sterling, while 

 the present season will probably exhibit an increase of 

 from sixteen to twenty per cent, on this amount. The 

 curea tish is exported to Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the 

 West Indies, and a small quantity come to England. I 

 shall, in the course of this Paper, endeavour to show why 

 this small quantity should be increased, and with how 

 much advantage to consumers in this country. 



The Seal Fishery. 



The next of our productions in point of importance is the 

 seal fishery, which is well illustrated in the Newfoundland 

 Court of the Exhibition. This 'fishery formerly employed 

 some four hundred vessels, varying from eighty to one 

 hundred and fifty tons, requiring the services of about 

 fourteen thousand men. The introduction of steam has 

 changed all that, and the fishery is now carried on by 

 about twenty-five steamers — not more than thirty or forty 

 sailing vessels remaining, through the obvious impossibility 

 of effective competition. The pursuit of this fishery is of 

 far more recent date than that of the cod. We find that 

 at the end of the last century the whole catch was but 

 about five thousand seals per annum. It continued to 

 increase, and in 1820 there were over two hundred thousand 

 taken. Winds and ice conditions have a regulating effect 

 on the success of the voyage, and the results show a most 

 important variation. Thus in 1844, 685,000 seals were 



