406 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [8] 



tbe totul Viilue of the fish cauglit,aud tlie different percentage of '■'■ full" 

 lierring among them, our nets will be found far superior ; for, as has 

 been said above, the difference in the character of the fish caught is not 

 by any means sufficiently great to correspond to the difference between 

 the quantity of the fish and the cost of the material. If the sale of fish 

 was better arranged, the Bohusliin fishermen, with their cheap material, 

 would derive greater profits from their fisheries than the Scotch do from 

 theirs. 



The expensive material, the uncertain and occasionally very small 

 yield, the greater risk of losing both material and life, the short fishing 

 season on the coast of Bohusliin, and the unfavorable natural conditions 

 (such as the great depth of the water and the prevailing land winds), 

 and, finally, the strong competition with the common herring-nets and 

 the so-called snorpvader (purse-seines), will always prevent the intro- 

 duction on a large scale of apparatus and methods like the Scotch. A 

 fisherman will hardly content himself with smaller yields, a smaller in- 

 come, and fewer chances to gain a competency simply to prove the 

 truth of Professor Smitt's assertion that the more uncertain and less 

 productive method of fishing would be more advantageous in the dis- 

 tant future. It should likewise be remembered that the Bohusliin fish- 

 ermen are, as a general rule, not like the fishermen of Great Britain and 

 the Netherlands, ])racticed in the herring fisheries from their earliest 

 3'outh, but that, on the contrary, they become herring fishermen merely 

 to earn some money during a short portion of the year, after which they 

 return to their proper vocations as soon as the herring fisheries are over. 

 This is a necessary consequence of the secular periodicity of the Bohus- 

 liin herring-fisheries, and it is impossible to make a change in this re- 

 spect. The inconveniences attending the fisheries are numerous enough, 

 even if the coast population does not, as Professor Smitt proposes, leave 

 its principal pursuit, agriculture, as early as the middle of August, in 

 order to engage in large floating-net fisheries on the Scotch i)lau. Any 

 one who will impartially examine our circumstances will find that our 

 population acts wisely in first giving attention to its principal pursuit, 

 and after that has been done (late in autumn) in engaging in the her- 

 ring fisheries, and employing a method and apparatus which promises 

 a better income than the expensive apparatus proposed by Professor 

 Smitt. 



As regards the often-repeated assertion that large permanent coast 

 fisheries like the Scotch could be established in the eastern pdrtion of 

 Skager Eack by fishing with floating-nets instead of with seines, both 

 experience and science ha,ve completely refuted it, and have proved that 

 the sea-herring visit the coast of Bohuslan at secular periods, and that 

 peculiar natural conditions, differing very much from those found in 

 tlie ]!^orth Sea, render it utterly impossible permanently to establish 

 such rich coast fisheries in the Eastern Skager Eack. 



If we consider the experience from the Bohusliin herring period of the 



