.".'.hi A Plea/or Sea Fisher, Cii.ut. xxvi. 



Bically what I turned in were worth about l annas, say three 

 pence. This result came of judicious selection, of not trying 

 to rear predatory and non-predatory fish, wolves and lambs, on the 

 same farm. 



55. What multiple, then, may I l>e allowed in comparing the fresh- 

 water farm with the land. Mr. Green says, 1,000. Dr. Buckland's 

 calculation comes to much the same. My experiment to about 

 250. Dropping hundreds and thousands, I might surely ask a 

 modest ten, and, multiplying the acres of fresh water, thereby show 

 again some millions of tons of fish producible from them. But in 

 their ease some trifling outlay would be necessary on legislation 

 and protection. They are not (piite like the seas waiting only to 

 be harvested. 



5G. And, after all, of what avail are figures ? They serve only 

 to reduce platitudes to points, hazy notions to definite conceptions. 

 And figures, too, lie under the suspicion of being misleading under 

 large multiples. 1 have therefore studiously endeavoured at every 

 turn to steer so far within the truth, that the very figures which I 

 have put forward, are only to be considered as roughly approxi- 

 mate estimates. Every multiple has been unfairly reduced. The 

 Length of line, as taken by an opisometer, is rough in the extreme, 

 and hundreds of miles within the mark. The depth to which the 

 breadth of coast bne has been taken is far within the mark, the 

 favourable localities being without reason thrown out, and undue 

 allowance made for possible rock, and again for possible barrenness, 

 and again a liberal allowance for stress of weather. In the second 

 minor calculation for the sea all the deductions, obviously existing 

 in the return have nevertheless been accepted. The fertile 

 estuaries have been taken no count of; and the hundreds and 

 thousands of miles of perennial fresh water have been allowed to 

 drop out, while the areas of fresh water not unassailable by drought 

 have been altogether discredited, though they, too, might be made 

 lo yield no mean returns in ordinary years. 



57. I bad thought to compare the produce of the sea, the 

 estuaries, and the rivers unassailable by drought, witli the whole of 

 the produce of the land, both that considered sab' against famine 

 from being reliably irrigated, and that also that could only be 

 relied on in ordinary years. 1 had meant to throw in also the 

 rain-watered "dry lands." Bu1 of what avail are further calcula- 



