ENGLISH FISHERIES. 117 



The fisheries on the Devonshire coast differ much in 

 their respective importance from those I have just 

 noticed as characteristic of Cornwall. We now find 

 drift fishing less thought of, and deep-sea trawling 

 systematically carried on. Plymouth is the most 

 western regular trawling station, and this mode of fish- 

 ing has been constantly carried on from there during 

 the whole of the present century, and probably for 

 some years before its commencement. More than fifty 

 years ago there were thirty trawl-smacks belonging to 

 the place, but they were only of half the size of those 

 now employed. Although the size and number of the 

 Plymouth trawlers have doubled, the increase has not 

 taken place so much of late, and the vessels have only 

 averaged a little over sixty in number for the last ten 

 or fifteen years. The ground worked by them is about 

 twenty-one miles in length and nine miles in its 

 greatest breadth, and the largest portion of it is west 

 of, and inside, the well-known Eddystone. It is, 

 therefore, not far from the land ; but it has the dis- 

 advantage of being exposed to the heavy sea which sets 

 in with the frequent south-westerly gales, and it is no 

 uncommon thing in winter for the trawlers to be obliged 

 to remain in harbour for two or three days at a time. 

 Much more profitable work might be done by them, 

 however, if they had a little more energy, and devoted 

 more time to the fishing when the weather permitted it. 

 But old habits are not easily changed, and the Plymouth 

 trawlers are still content with going to sea every morn- 

 ing and returning home in the afternoon, thus wasting 

 half their time in harbour, and losing the night-fishing, 



