CHAP. xi. J FREE FISHERIES A MISTAKE. 489 



the negligence or pointed disregard of all interests displayed 

 by others. 



I have not in the course of this work intruded many of 

 my own theories as to fish and fishing upon the reader ; but 

 I have not been studying the subject for fifteen years without 

 theorising a little, and when the proper time comes I shall 

 have a great deal more to say about the natural history of 

 our food-fishes than I have said in the present volume. In 

 the meantime I am anxious, as regards the whole of the sea 

 fisheries, to inculcate the duty of obtaining more and better 

 statistics than we have ever yet collected. 



Our great farm, the sea, is free to all too free ; there is 

 no seed or manure to provide, and no rent to pay. Every 

 adventurer able to procure a boat may go and spoliate the 

 shoals ; he need have no care for the growth or preservation of 

 animals which he has been taught to think inexhaustible. In 

 one sense it is of no consequence to a fisherman that he 

 catches codlings instead of cod ; whatever size the fish may 

 be, they yield him what he fishes for money. What if all 

 the herrings he captures be crowded with spawn? what if 

 they be virgin fish that have never added a quota to the 

 general stock ? That is nothing to the fisherman so long as 

 they bring him money. Our free unregulated fisheries are a 

 thorough mistake. If a fisherman having a capital of 500 

 in boats, nets, etc., had invested in a breeding-farm, how 

 would he act ? Would he not earn his living and increase 

 his capital by allowing his animals to breed ? and certainly 

 he would never cut down oats or wheat in a green state. 

 But the fish-farmers do all these things, and the Fishery 

 Board stamps them with approval. We must look better 

 into these matters ; and I would crave the expenditure by 

 government of a few -thousand pounds definitely to settle, 

 by well -devised experiments, such points in the natural 

 history of the herring and other white fish as clog the 



