28 The Commercial Products of the Sea. 



hauling in line and unhooking fish, the men on board 

 heave in the other end of the lines with a winch. In this 

 way 400 of the larger bank cod are commonly taken in 

 a night. The fish are cleaned and salted on board, and 

 stowed in the hold in bulk ; the livers to be boiled for oil 

 are put in large casks, secured on deck. 



The French vessels engaged in this fishery are from 

 1 50 to 300 tons burthen ; they arrive on the Grand Bank 

 early in June, and on the average complete their cargoes 

 in three months. 



The bultow mode of fishing is wholly used by the French 

 on the banks, and the large vessels have over five or six 

 miles of lines and 6500 hooks lying at the bottom at a 

 time. The shore fishery is prosecuted by hook and line, 

 either in whale-boats or flats. 



The bultow is considered very injurious, in destroying 

 what the fishermen call the mother fish, that is, the female 

 fish near the time of depositing their spawn, when they are 

 very torpid and careless in seeking food, which at this 

 period they do always on the bottom, when the bultow 

 hooks are laying ready baited to entrap them. It is but 

 seldom that these fish are caught in the common way, with 

 hook and line, and it is a wise provision of Providence that 

 the cod is so prolific, otherwise the bultow system would 

 almost destroy the species. Leuwenhock counted 9,384,000 

 eggs of spawn in a cod of middling size, and Hanmer 

 3,686,750 in one that weighed 12,540 grains. 



The moment a fish is taken off the hook it should be 

 bled. This may be done by the person who is employed 

 in taking it off the hook. The fish must then be headed, 

 split up, and gutted, in doing which, the sound should be 

 carefully preserved for cure. The fish should then have the 

 bone removed, care being taken that it shall be cut away 



