7 
of such organised work before reliable conclusions could 
be arrived at. Still the outline of the sub-divisions and 
relations of the investigation given below may be useful 
to the Committee as showing the complexity of such a 
question, and the need for a very thorough systematic 
investigation of all such fishery matters. 
Finally, I may refer to the most important event of 
the past year in connection with Sea-Fisheries Organisa- 
tion and Administration in this Country, viz., the trans- 
ference of the Official Government department dealing 
with these matters from the Board of Trade to what is 
now the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. This must 
be a matter of congratulation in so far as it gives to our 
subject more of the high relative position and the im- 
proved status to which its importance entitles it,, and 
which it possesses in most civilised countries. Although 
not yet an independent department of State, with a 
Minister for Fisheries, it is now conjoined on an equality 
with the allied subject, Agriculture, under a President, 
Lord Onslow, who recognises fully its claims to his 
attention, and will assuredly give sympathetic and 
adequate treatment to the new division of his department. 
The union of Fisheries with Agriculture is a natural one, 
which we see working well in Ireland, in several of the 
Colonies and elsewhere. Aquicriture and Agriculture have 
similar disciplines, and similar methods should give 
similar results. The operations that result in the 
harvest of the sea being now placed under the same 
guiding hand as those that affect the harvest of the land, 
we may hope that in the former case as in the latter the 
returns from nature will be increased as the result of 
scientific cultivation. 
From the scientific point of view the present division 
of the territorial waters of England and Wales into Sea- 
