122 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [24] 
should be men of skill and experience; (3) that the conditions as to 
season, weather, current, &c., should be favorable; and (4) that the fish 
can at all times find a ready market. 
As regards the first condition, it is hardly probable that it can be 
fulfilled except during a new great herring period, for herring of a 
really superior quality have, so far, at least, only been noticed in com- 
paratively small numbers near our coast; the second condition will 
doubtless be fulfilled gradually, if the herring come in large numbers 
and the fisheries consequently become more extensive. The conditions 
as to season, weather, current, &c., will hardly be favorable with us, as 
at present the herring approach our coast in large numbers during the 
winter season.'© As regards a ready market, there would be no great 
difficulty, as the Swedish-Norwegian railroads, and, in a still higher 
degree, the Jutland railroads offer considerable facilities for bringing the 
herring into the markets of Norway, Denmark, and Germany, both 
fresh and slightly salted; and as a really good and well prepared article 
will, though gradually, gain for itself the place which it deserves. Under 
the present circumstances, however, when herring of really superior 
quality are comparatively scarce on our coast, the general introduction 
of the drag-net in our fisheries will (as I have said in my preliminary 
report on the scientific investigations of 187374) hardly be advisable." 
(4.) The employment of drag-nets during a possible herring period.—If, 
however, our so-called “old” north-sea herrings should again, as in 
former times, visit the Skagerack for a longer period, it will be evident 
that the first and foremost condition of successful drag-net fisheries—viz, 
large numbers of herring coming near the coast—would be fulfilled. But 
this by no means implies that these fisheries (with drag-nets) would be 
profitable or desirable for Sweden. On our coast other apparatus will al- 
ways be more or Jess employed, and will yield the by far greater portion 
of all the herring caught in our waters, and, therefore principally deter- 
mine the price of Bohus-lin herring in the market, and the method to be 
pursued in our herring fisheries and industries. Swedish drag-net fish- 
ers will probably find ruinous rivals in the seine fishers,’ as the expenses 
10This would of course be different if, as was the case during the great herring periods 
of the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, the herring came near the coast at the 
end of summer, or in the beginning of autumn, in which case they would also be of 
much better quality. 
See A. V. LJUNGMAN: Om sillsaltning och sillhandel in the Gottenburg Handels- 
och Sjéfarts-Tidning, December 9, 1881. 
2 Which for the present aims at bringing into the market a cheap herring, and pro- 
ducts prepared from such cheap herring. See the Gottenburg Handels-och Sjéfarts- 
Tidning, January 14, 1879. 
13 This also happened during the great fisheries of the eighteenth century, as experi- 
ments with drag-nets on a large scale, though subsidized by the government, did not 
yield a sufficient result to warrant their continuance. The experiments in the Kat- 
tegat were made in autumn, and the principal station for the herring vessels was at 
Kiringo.—See Den Svinska Mercurius, February, 1756, pp. 454-457, 459-460; also Nya 
Handlingar of Kongl. Wetenskaps-och Witterhets-Samhillet, Goteborg, Gottenburg, 1808, 
p. 46. 
