122 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



mentioned uatnral conditions are found or can be artificially procured. 

 After tlie fish have laid their eggs they are caught and taken out, whilst 

 the roe is, of course, left on the grassy bottom until it is hatched. The 

 young fish are then allowed to go free if such is their desire. By these 

 and other similar means the number of fish in a bay may be considerably 

 increased. It is evident, however, that these means will help but little 

 unless measures are taken to prevent the young fish from being caught 

 in nets with small meshes or with other fishing-implements. Care must 

 also be taken that the schools of fish in one and the same sheet of water 

 are not, by excessive fishing, diminished to such a degree as no longer 

 to be able to propagate their species at the rate necessary for keeping 

 up their numbers. He who cuts down the tender blade will never reap 

 any grain, and he who only sows one-tenth of the seed which his field 

 ought annually to yield, will never have a full harvest. It is evident, 

 therefore, that the owner of fishing- waters must not only employ the 

 above-mentioned means for increasing his number of fish, but must also 

 see to it that the spawning process is not disturbed and that the tender 

 young fish are properly protected. With the view of obtaining this end 

 and in view of the fact that fish will wander from one sheet of water to 

 the other — thus making it possible that one owner of fishing- waters may 

 disturb the fisheries of another — the common interests of the proprietors 

 of fishing-waters imperatively demand that all carry on their fisheries in 

 a manner suited to the nature of the fish and the peculiar condition of 

 the water. He who desires to reap a full harvest from his fishing- waters 

 must, therefore, not only himself carefully observe all the rules necessary 

 for preserving and protecting his fisheries, but he must hkewise see to 

 it that his neighbors do the same. Wherever such rules have not yet 

 been adopted it will be in the interest of the owners of fishing-waters to 

 introduce them as soon as possible, as only after this has been done wiU 

 there be any reasonable hope that the measures for improving the fish- 

 eries will be successful. 



With regard to the nature of the fiiuua of our Swedish coast, there 

 are chiefly two rules which ought to be observed in fishing, and these 

 are, not to fish with nets during the spawning-season, and not to use 

 nets whose meshes are shorter than one decimal inch, except in cases 

 Avhere bait is to be caught. Just as important as it is in spring to pre- 

 pare suitable spawning-places for the fish, it will be to see to it that the 

 above-mentioned rules are not transgressed during the year. A^Tiere all 

 the possible means have been employed for aiding the pro]iagation of 

 fish, and where only suitable fishing-implements are used, the owner of 

 fishing- waters, like the farmer, must not miss the harvest-time. Human 

 ingenuity has, fortunately, in course of time invented so many methods 

 of catching fish, that he who is well versed in these methods may derive 

 a benefit from his fishing- waters nearly all the year round without using 

 methods of fishing by which the young fish are destroyed, or by Avhicli 

 the future of the fisheries is undermined. 



