VALUE OF FISHERIES 53 



should find more food on the seabed than 

 the British Isles could supply ; pelagic and 

 demersal fish of all kinds, mature and 

 immature, their small fry, larvae, fish eggs, 

 crustaceans, molluscs , starfish, etc., would 

 literally cover the bottom, and all would 

 be coated with vegetable matter and a thick 

 cream of plankton. Compare this with 

 the land products of the British Isles. 

 We have fertile soils producing heavy 

 crops of food, but we have also bleak 

 mountain pastures useless for food pur- 

 poses rocklands, moorlands, and boglands. 

 The fertility of the North Sea is more 

 equal, there are few if any waste places. 

 The plankton, from jelly-fish to the 

 smallest diatom, of great importance 

 as furnishing the food of fish, would 

 compare with the land crops on which 

 we feed our cattle ; the edible fish, from 

 the whale to the oyster, would compare 

 with cattle and sheep. We should find 

 that the productivity of these northern 

 fishing grounds is greater than the pro- 

 ductivity of the whole of the British 

 Isles. We do not avail ourselves of this 

 productivity as yet. The science of agri- 



