Ciiapt. xxvi. A id possible Harvest, :; x:; 



be tliu< summarily discarded, for rocks yield crustaceans and shell- 

 fish and iiisect life-rearing seaweed. This leaves me with still an 

 average belt of 12 miles of fishing ground. 



36. To find the length of this belt, an opisometer has been 

 run round the coast at about a mile from shore, so as to take 

 no count of indentations. The result is a length of 4,611 English 



miles. 



37. Then 4,611 miles long, multiplied by 12 miles broad, gives 

 fishing area of 55,332 square miles, which, reduced to acres, 



gives 35,412,480 acres of sea bottom good for fishing. 



38. We have above (paras. 11 and 17) allowed an annual 

 produce of 52 tons an acre. But that was " on the best fishing 



lunds," though they were at the same time" the most frequented 

 " fishing grounds." How may I obtain a calculation for all fishing 

 grounds ? I have already stated that I believe the Indian seas 

 are better for fishing than the English, being almost all sandy 

 bottom,-, l. However if 1 consider that half of them are utterly 

 barren, and so reduce my average from 52 to 2G tons an acre, I 

 shall surely have satisfied the most exacting. 



39. Then 26 tons an acre will, over :.'>.">, -112,480 acres, give me an 

 annual possible produce of 920,72 1,480 tons of fish. 



40. But India has its monsoons, so that for two and a half to 

 three months in the year on the West Coast, and for a less period 

 on the East Coast, it is dangerous for small boats to put to sea. I 

 will take a three mouths' cessation of sea fishing all round both 

 coasts, and reducing my calculation by one quarter, claim only an 

 annual harvestahle produce of 690,543,360 tons of fish. 



41. But if 1 am to draw an exact parallel, I am entitled to 

 claim that the the water farm of which I speak, the sea, as being 

 Utterly Unassailable by drought, shall be compared not with the land 

 generally, but with only so much of it as is in a like position, as is 

 not liable to be affected by drought. In the Madias Presidency I 

 find that 4,004 square miles, or more exactly 2,535,063 acres, are 

 put down as irrigated in a manner that makes them sale from 

 drought 



42. This i> not my calculation, but that of the department 

 whose business it is to indicate it. It is arrived at as follow- ; 



