NATURAL HISTORY OF COMMERCE. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF COMMERCE. 



i HUTER VI. 



BRITISH FISHERIES. 



Declining Condition of liritiih Fiiheriee Staple FUhery Salmon 

 FiBherjr-Shell Fish- Whale FUuerjr. 



Tin: British seas aro wonderfully rich in food-produce, 

 and, from our inborn love of the ocean, flourishing 

 fisheries ini^ht In- predirnted ; but, relatively to the pro- 

 gress of other industry, these have been languidly pur- 

 sued. It was once thought necessary to puy Ix-iintie.- 

 upon die take, a t'.dse economy huppily discontinued, and 

 wit limit, diminishing the supply. 



The staple fishery of tho United Kingdom is that of 

 herrings, shoals of which, at the season of spawning, 

 crowd the inlets and bays of Great Britain and Ireland. 

 Uf the English fishing stations Yarmouth possesses 

 the greatest celebrity for its semi-smoked and salted 

 bloaters, everywhere esteemed. From Yarmouth to the 

 Shet lands, fleets of herring boats ply their nets, every 

 town on the coast being more or less employed in the 

 capture and curing of this important fish. The Scotch 

 herrings are larger and higher dried than those of Yar- 

 mouth. The chief fishing station, probably, in the United 

 Kingdom is Wick, within a few miles of John o' Groats. 

 Peterhead and Fraserburgh are likewise places of great 

 resort for curing herrings. Tho Scottish fisheries 

 generally are prosecuted with energy in every firth 

 and loch, as well as in the channels of the northern and 

 western islands. The Irish fisheries, on the other hand, 

 have thriven least. Some of the most considerable are 

 on the Nymph Bank, south of Waterford, but tho pro- 

 duce is principally taken to English ports, while salted 

 herrings are obtained from Scotland. 



Pilchards, allied to the herring, are taken chiefly during 

 September and October. They are found in all the creeks 

 of Ireland, and off the coasts of Devon and Cornwall. 

 These fisheries fall but little short of the importance of 

 that of Yarmouth ; yet while herrings aro the frequent 

 frugal meal of the London poor, pilchards are hardly 

 known to them, and are only seen when a few stray 

 catches are used as prize sprats to embellish the fish- 

 monger's silvery heaps. Many thousand hogsheads of 

 pilchards are exported to the Mediterranean, whence we 

 get the closely -related anchovy and sardine, the inter- 

 change adding to the variety of food on both sides. 

 Sprats are found in enormous shoals during tho winter 

 months, and too often wasted for want of a ready market. 



Between the Cornish and Yarmouth fishing grounds 

 the mackerel intervene, extending mainly from the Isle 

 of Wight to the Straits of Dover, and assuming during 

 the season a very considerable value. From Ireland 

 large supplies of remarkably fine mackerel have lately 

 been received, packed in ice. 



Turbot, soles, and other so-called flat fish, as well as 

 cod, swarm on the sandbanks of the North Sea, especially 

 the central great Dogger Bank. Here fishing-boats are 

 now stationed for weeks together, and the produce of the 

 nets is forwarded to London and elsewhere as fast as 

 swift-sailing cutters or large screw steamers can carry it. 

 By this means many additional hundreds of tons of fine 

 fish, especially plaice and haddocks, are obtained for the 

 poorer population of our largo towns. There are exten- 

 sive coa and white-fish fisheries in Scotland. The fish- 

 ing grounds round Ireland abound with cod, hake, and 

 ling, but have never yet been satisfactorily worked. 



The salmon originates a peculiar fishery, in which 

 again the Scotch are foremost. The rivers Tweed, 

 Tay, Dee, Don, and Spey teem with this noblest of tho 

 finny tribes, whose capture is a fluctuating but very 

 valuable division of industry, and an attraction to anglers 

 from the most distant parts of the kingdom. The Irish 

 rivers glisten with salmon, which, however, until lately 



103 N E. 



were not sufficiently cared for, from an economic point 

 of view. 



ide in salted cod, wet and dry, in carried on with 

 St. John's, Newfoundland, tho head-quarters of tltc 

 i fisheries on the Great Bank, where tho fish taken 

 into St. John's for exportation aro chiefly caught. 



Shell Flh. 



Shell-fish, as various forms of crustaceans and mollusk* 

 aro called, provide us with a large amount of food, 

 There is a lobster fishery along the rocky coast of 

 Yorkshire, another in tho Orkneys, and thousands of lob* 

 sters and crabs are caught yearly on tho south and west 

 coasts of England, to be sent to the London markets. 

 Ireland supplies us occasionally with largo quantities of 

 lobsters, but we fetch our finest from Norway, whcro 

 they are carefully preserved. In tho opinion of natu- 

 ralists, wo might quadruple at least tho produce of our 

 own shores. 



Prawns are "potted" on the south coasts, and shrimps 

 arc netted on most shallow shores; Boston, Lynn, and 

 Leigh, near Southend, supply the choicest kinds. One 

 eminent firm alone pays from 800 to 1,000 a-year car* 

 riage for this tea-table luxury. Just now the greatest 

 quantities are obtained from the Briel, via, Harwich the 

 red shrimps of the trade. 



All round tho coasts and the islands are spots noted 

 for oyster culture. Tho finest variety is that of the 

 Whitstable native. For some years past an increasing 

 dearth in the supply, arising from climatic influences, 

 or, as some think, from the destruction of the spat, or 

 young oysters, through careless dredging, has made 

 tho choicer sorts an indulgence only within the reach of 

 the rich, and has directed tho attention of the Govern- 

 ment to the subject. The oyster occurs chiefly in 

 estuaries, the Thames, the Wash, and the Severn all 

 having many great beds, as have likewise some of the 

 estuaries of Ireland. 



Great quantities of mussels aggregate on the rocks, 

 attached by their byssus, and are used for food, mainly 

 in the towns near their growth, while still more are used 

 as bait. It is computed that from thirty to forty millions 

 of mussels are gathered for this purpose annually in 

 the Firth of Forth. 



Enormous quantities of periwinkles aro eaten where 

 they can be easily obtained, principally by the humbler 

 classes of society. Other mollusks, as the whelk, the 

 scallop or pecten, and the cockle, aro brought to market, 

 but do not approach the importance of those described, 



Whale Fishery. To call tho whale a fish, and its chase 

 a fishery, is in either case a misnomer ; yet industrially, 

 there is a relation between the sea fisheries and the 

 whale fisheries. The economic products derived from 

 the cctacea, with which we may place as a natural 

 alliance the phocacea, or seal tribe, and some large fishes, 

 are oils, seal-skins, furs, balena or whalebone, sperma- 

 ceti, ambergris, and ivory. It is Australia now that dis- 

 patches most vessels to the Southern Sea ; Hull in Eng- 

 land, and Peterhead in Scotland, aro the chief ports 

 identified with the whale-fishery of the northern seas. 



CHAPTER VIL 



EUROPEAN ANALOGUES OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Analogues or Counterpart* of Great Britain Analogues of Mining 

 Industry Of Auimal Produce Of Vegetable Produce notional* 

 of our Corn Commerce. 



Analoyues or Counterparts of Great Britain. 



Similar geological and climatic conditions yield analo- 

 gous results in the flora and fauna of a country, and in 

 tho industrial pursuits of populations. Such analogues 

 have already been shown between the United Kingdom 

 and many parts of Europe. We exchange little raw pro- 

 duce with the people of the Continent, but we fetch and 



