284 SEA FISHERIES 



The situation in Newfoundland is more complicated 

 than in Iceland. The question of the steam trawler 

 is there involved with another question, which affects 

 only the sailing vessels : the matter of bait. The cost 

 of bait is for them the cost of fishing. It has to be 

 obtained on the spot, for the fishermen take none 

 with them on leaving France, beyond perhaps a dozen 

 barrels of salted herring, and they count upon abundant 

 harvests of bulots, encornets, and caplin to bait their 

 hooks during the first fishing season. Here we recognise 

 the proverbial imprudence of seamen. To-day the 

 question of bait is partly solved; a refrigerating store- 

 house has been built at Saint-Pierre, for the preservation 

 of bulots, encornets, and caplin, where the Breton and 

 Norman "bankers" can in future lay in supplies. 



In 1908 the French trawlers did well. There were 

 twelve : hailing from Boulogne, Fecamp, and Arcachon. 

 The Nord-caper, in thirty-six days, caught 4,000 quintals 

 of cod ; the Marguerite-Marie caught 1,500 in sixteen 

 days. All these trawlers fished the Banquereau, the 

 largest catches being made on its eastern portion, in 

 depths of 22 to 27 fathoms. " These results," wrote 

 the commandant of the French naval station of 

 Newfoundland, "are greatly superior to those obtained 

 in the Iceland fishery. From the declarations of four 

 captains who had fished off Iceland before coming to 

 the banks, it appears that the average yield of the 

 Iceland grounds did not exceed 50 quintals per diem, 

 or less than half of the yield obtained here. Moreover, 

 the daily catch there is far less regular than here, and 

 the fishery proceeds, so to speak, by fits and starts, 

 in the intervals of which the crew does nothing, which 

 is not the case here. It is expected that next year a 

 large proportion of the fifty French trawlers which 



