COMMITTEE B — DECEMBER 1903 ( 28 ) 
therefore, enquired of Dr. Petersen whether he would not be able to use a com- 
mercial trawl as well as his own one for experiments in the North Sea. 
Dr. Prrersen doubted if he had the money for the purpose suggested by 
Dr. Horx, which would involve alterations to his vessel. For the present, at any 
rate, he would proceed with the comparative experiments and his small trawl. 
Dr. Horx said that the point had now been sufficiently discussed and the 
opinion of all had been taken. 
(5) Dr. Horx asked Dr. Petersen if he desired to supplement the Convener’s 
proposals concerning the transplantation of marked plaice. 
Dr. Petersen agreed with the Convener that the general over-fishing problem 
was not the most essential question for practical purposes, and it was not of a 
character to be solved in a few years in an absolute scientific way. It would be 
of much more interest for the various Governments and for the advantage of the 
fisheries if they could show how to increase the stock of fishes actually existing. 
The Convener had suggested the transplantation of plaice. He would like to give 
some information about this, because it was no new thing in Denmark. He laid 
before the meeting the new Fishery Bill in which the Danish Government proposed 
to give 20,000 kröner (£1, 100) per annum, not for investigations, but for making 
money out of the fisheries of the Lim Fjord. The fishermen now transplanted 
plaice for their own profit, and had done so for several years with good results. 
The whole thing was now to be taken up by the Government on a larger scale. 
He was of opinion that transplantation might also be useful both in the Cattegat 
and North Sea. If they found areas in the North Sea which were overcrowded 
with young plaice and where they grew very slowly, and other areas where there 
were comparatively few large plaice per unit area, and growing fast, he believed 
that transplantation to these areas would be of practical value. He showed some 
frequency curves of the different sizes of plaice trawled on the grounds between 
Esbjerg and the Dogger Bank, and compared them with a series from other 
trawlings of the “Thor” in Icelands fjords at similar depths. These showed that 
the big mature plaice were much more abundant in Iceland than in the North 
Sea. It was possible therefore, that so many of the big plaice had been fished 
out of the North Sea that there would be room enough for others to grow at a 
faster rate. He could promise nothing, and certainly not such good results as in 
the Lim Fjord, where the plaice could be transplanted at a cost of 1 öre (half a 
farthing) each in the spring, and attain a value of 50 üre (6%/4 d.) each in the 
autumn of the same year. But he would support the Convener’s proposal that the 
Committee should undertake experiments in transplantation, (1) because it would 
afford a working hypothesis for their marking experiments, (2) because the whole 
problem of transplantation was capable of exact scientific investigation, and (3) in 
