CONFERENCE ON TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1883, 



The EARL OF DUCIE in the Chair. 



TRAWLING. 



THE Beam-trawl is in most use amongst the English, 

 French, and the Netherlands ; and the trawling is prosecuted 

 principally in the North Sea and around our coasts by craft 

 of various description, rig and tonnage. There are also 

 different modes of preserving the fish in a fresh state when 

 caught, and in its conveyance to land and the markets for 

 which it is intended; there is the inshore and the deep 

 sea trawling. 



The inshore trawling is prosecuted much in the same 

 manner as the deep sea, but these do not go in fleets and 

 the craft are necessarily smaller and the gear lighter, by 

 them we have the bays and shallow parts of our coasts fished 

 over, these craft using small mesh trawls doing great injury. 

 Deep sea or Beam trawling as practised on our coasts has 

 during the last century sprung from comparative insignifi- 

 cance to an important and increasing industry.* The rapid 

 development of late years may be traced to the introduction 

 of ice and the spread of our railway system, by which the 

 catcher has been enabled to get the fruits of his toil distri- 

 buted to the many thousands dwelling in the inland towns 

 those who seldom or never saw or tasted salt water fish. 

 * Brixham claims to be the nursery of trawling in England. 



VOL. VII. C. X 



