( 265 ) 



GERMANY. 



(For Plan, see p. 76.) 



THERE are many advantages in the geographical position of the German Empire which 

 considerably favour fishery and its cultivation. The vast extent of the south coast of the 

 Baltic, with its multitude of useful fish, which abound still more towards the south-west, 

 wholly falls within the limits of the German Empire, while the coasts of Schleswig-Holstein, 

 Hanover, and Oldenburg afford a considerable seaboard on the German Ocean. The wide 

 estuaries (Haffs), covering an area of 401,956 hect., and formed by the great rivers which 

 flow into the Baltic, combine the advantages of both salt and fresh water, and thus greatly 

 contribute to the success of fishery. The country may be divided into six large river districts 

 created by the Khine, Danube, Weser, Elbe, Oder, and Vistula. In these rivers, and their 

 numerous tributaries, every variety of flowing water is to be found, from mountain rivers and 

 torrents replete with all kind of salmonoids down to the sluggish streams in the plains, with 

 their multitudes of valuable cyprinoids. Along the southern boundary of the empire, the 

 Alpine slopes have formed that group of mountain lakes which by their matchless beauty 

 delight every tourist, yet, however important these may be on account of their extent and 

 the abundance of fish they contain, they are surpassed in importance by the endless number 

 of lake-like formations to be met with in the eastern portions of the plains of Northern 

 Germany, partly isolated, partly connected with each other, or with neighbouring rivers ; 

 these lake-like formations are of the highest value for the purposes of fishery. The river 

 Drewenz (to take a single example), which is 200 kilometres in length, connects 123 lakes of 

 this description in its course through East and West Prussia, whereby the migration of fish 

 is greatly facilitated. The area of these lakes exceeds 20,000 hect., and the fauna of the 

 combined sea and river system comprise salmon, sturgeon, trout, grayling, smelt, the small 

 maraena, perch-pike, pike, perch, pope, lamprey, and of the large tribe of the cyprinoids, carp, 

 tench, dace, barbel ; finally large numbers of eels, and particularly fine crayfish. It must be 

 understood that this district is not exceptionally favoured by piscatorial advantages ; on the 

 contrary, the percentage of the area occupied by these waters to the total area of the district 

 will show that their extent is not above the average area covered by water in other parts of 

 the empire. The average percentage in the seven eastern provinces of Prussia is 4-3 : in 

 the provinces of East and West Prussia alone it is 7*4, in Posen 2-0, in Brandenburg 3'0, and 

 in Pomerania 77. These natural advantages must have led the people of Germany to take 

 up fishing at a very early period. Indeed pre-historio discoveries have brought to light 

 surprising facts, which show how closely connected with the dawn of civilization was the 

 practice of fishing. With the advent of historic times, we find in records, statutes, names of 

 towns, escutcheons, and many other things, increased testimony that fishing was a highly 

 important factor in the economy of the nation. The history of later periods brings to light 

 facts such as these, viz.: that fishery was to a great extent the source from which the 

 Hanseatic League derived its power, and by which its commercial instincts were encouraged ; 

 that the German Order during its colonizing efforts in heathen Prussia, bestowed a care and 

 skill on the regulation of fishery in many respects worth emulating even at the present day ; 

 and that the people felt so keenly the gradual restrictions and alterations in the original right 

 of free fishing, that the claim for the restitution of this right occupied a prominent place in 

 the programme of the great social movement, which agitated the peasants in the sixteenth 

 century. In the following centuries the cultivation of fishing, in common with national 

 economy generally, suffered a great relapse, which for a long time retarded an advance from 

 mere promiscuous fishing to that more methodical system which aids nature, partly by trying 

 to increase the stock of fish, partly by making proper and rational use of them. It is only very 

 recently that the sense of the advantages of this system has returned, and at the present 

 moment fishery associations are established in all the Confederate States of Germany, fore- 

 most among them being Prussia, These associations, which aye uniformly supported by the 



