309 



When I hired the fishing, eight years ago, there was not 

 one ton of Mussels on the whole eleven miles. I appointed 

 watchers, enforced a close time, cleaned the ground, and 

 endeavoured to keep off poachers, but with very indifferent 

 success. Mr. Le Strange, in 1879, applied to the Board of 

 Trade for the grant of an order for the establishment and 

 maintenance of a joint Oyster and Mussel fishery, under 

 the powers of "The Sea Fisheries Act, 1868," so as to 

 provide a better protection for the fishery. The Board of 

 Trade sent an inspector down to hold an enquiry as to the 

 proposed order, and in June this year the order received 

 the Royal assent, rather more than four years after the 

 first application, at a cost of several hundred pounds, 

 owing to the Board of Trade refusing to define the 

 boundary of an adjacent fishery to which they had pre- 

 viously granted an order. 



This order will greatly benefit the long-line fishermen 

 off the coasts of Northumberland and the South of Scot- 

 land, as I have special railway rates to all the ports on 

 these coasts, and can afford, when I have any Mussels, to 

 deliver them at a reasonable price for bait. The import- 

 ance of Mussels for bait to these deep-sea line boats is 

 incalculable. 



Mr. P. Wilson, late Her Majesty's Fishery Officer at 

 Eyemouth, in Scotland, reports that in one week the boats 

 from Burnmouth, Coldingham and Eyemouth used for 

 baiting their long lines, sixty-one tons of Mussels. They 

 landed, with this quantity of Mussels, 25,620 stone of 

 Haddocks, besides a considerable quantity of Cod and 

 Whiting, and got for the fish is. 8d. per stone, equal to 

 about 2,500. Observe, in one week alone, sixty-one tons 

 of Mussels were used at these three fishing-stations for 

 bait, the cost of which was about 160, the produce in fish 



