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318 
NATURE 
[DECEMBER 21, 1916 
systematic study and more intensive cultivation of the 
land must be made. In quite a similar way, and for 
no less important reasons, the harvest of the sea must 
be promoted, the fisheries must be continuously inves- 
tigated, and such cultivation as is possible must be 
applied to our barren shores. All such fisheries culti- 
vation is one of the natural applications of biological 
science, and ought therefore to be supported and 
directed by the members of this section and other 
marine biologists. 
Now that considerable areas of the British fishing 
grounds are either closed to trawlers or impracticable 
for the usual fishing operations, any increase of 
employment on the seashore and in shallow waters 
round the coast may be of direct and immediate advan- 
tage both to the men and to the country. Such indus- 
tries as shell-fish cultivation, shrimping and prawning, 
whitebait and sprat fishing, and herring fishing and 
curing, if extended and exploited judiciously, will add 
to employment, will increase the food supply of the 
country, and may lead to the establishment of per- 
manent industries of a profitable nature. On the west 
coast the Lancashire and Western Sea-Fisheries Com- 
mittee has been alive to such possibilities for some 
time past, and much of its scientific fisheries work 
has been directed towards showing the improvements 
that might be introduced in connection with the local 
shell-fish industries. It has been shown in_ its 
annual reports how mussels and cockles can be fat- 
tened and greatly increased in value by transplanting 
to better feeding grounds, and how, if reared in 
sewage-polluted waters, they can then be cleansed and 
purified before being sent to market. The Lancashire 
Committee, realising the present opportunity of help- 
ing such deserving industries, has worked out several 
concrete cases where a moderate expenditure, either 
in transplanting or in purifying the shell-fish, or both, 
would be likely to give immediate beneficial results, 
and so far as opportunity offers it is endeavouring 
to promote such useful work. 
This is not a time when it is easy to induce public 
bodies to undertake any fresh expense, but it will be 
unfortunate for the country if such directly productive 
expenditure, which may reasonably be expected to lead 
to the establishment of permanent shell-fish industries, 
be prevented or delayed for want of the comparatively 
small sums which are necessary to start the work. 
As_an example of what can be done at a small cost 
to improve the value of shell-fish by judicious trans- 
planting, the work of the Lancashire and Western 
Sea-Fisheries Committee in 1903-5 may be cited.? It 
was carried out on the mussel beds at Heysham, in 
Morecambe Bay, probably the most extensive mussel- 
producing grounds on the west coast of England. 
In 1903 the committee gave a grant of 5ol. to be 
expended on labour in transplanting overcrowded and 
stunted mussels, which were not showing any growth, 
to neighbouring areas which were not so thickly popu- 
lated. The result was most striking. Mussels, which 
in their original condition could never have been of 
any use as food, had been turned into a valuable com- 
modity at comparatively little trouble and expense. 
The money value to the fishermen of these mussels 
that had been transplanted for sol. was estimated a 
few months later to have been at least sool. In 1904, 
again, a grant of sol. resulted in the transplanting 
of under-sized mussels, which were later on sold at 
a profit of more than s5ool. In the following year 
(1905) a grant of 75]. resulted in the sale of the trans- 
planted mussels some months later for 5791. On that 
occasion more than 240 tons of the under-sized mussels 
had been transplanted in six days’ work. It was 
found that-on the average the transplanting increased 
2 See Lancashire Sea-Fisheries Laboratory Report for 1905. 
NO. 2460, vol. 98] 
the bull of the mussels about two and a half times, 
and the increase in length to tne original shell Wos 
in some cases well above an inch. ne 
Experiments have also been made on the Lancashire 
coast in the transplantation of co¢kles from overcrowded 
to less crowded sands with equally favourable results.* 
It is obvious that when, on the conclusion® ot war, 
many men return to work along our coasts any in- 
crease of employment in connection with such local 
fishing industries will be of direct and immediate ad- 
vantage to the country. It is to be hoped that notimug 
will be allowed to interfere with this transplantation 
and purification work, and that whenever possibie — 
further funds will be devoted towards the promotion 
of schemes which seem desirable, if not, indeed, essen- 
tial, from the point of view of the industry and of 
public health alike. In connection with the public 
health aspect of the matter, much of Dr. Johnstone’s 
work on the Lancashire coast for some years past has 
dealt with the condition of the shell-fish beds in rela- 
tion to sewage contamination, by means both of topo- 
graphical inspections on the shore and of subsequent 
bacteriological investigations of samples in the labora- 
tory.* 
As an example of a local fishery which has been 
started as the result of a little ingenuity and enter- 
prise, we may take the Morecambe winter sprat fishery 
which has developed during the last couple of years. 
The fish are being caught in great quantities by a new 
method, which is the ‘tstow'’-net modified to suit the 
conditions prevailing in the strong tidal currents of 
the Morecambe Bay channels. The sprats appear in 
September, then become very abundant off Morecambe 
in November, and remain in quantity until the end of 
January, after which the sprats’ become smaller and 
the.fishery diminishes in value. During the height of 
the fishery fully 70 tons of fish were landed per day, 
and the money value of this catch to the fishermen 
was more than jool. <A ton of sprats contains on an 
average 130,000 fish. In a day’s fishing, therefore, 
nine millions of sprats may be captured, and this goes 
on day after day without making any appreciable 
difference to the abundance of the fish. A full account 
of this recent fishery and the method of using the 
“stow ’’-net is given by Mr. Andrew Scott in the Lan- 
cashire Sea-Fisheries Report for 1915. 
Another interesting and very profitable local fishery, 
which has arisen or been resuscitated quite recently in 
the Irish Sea, is the summer herring fishery off the 
south end of the Isle of Man. In former days there seems 
to have been a regular summer herring fishery, but for 
the last thirty years or so it has failed—the fishermen 
say because of the absence of herrings, but more prob- 
ably it is because these men have found more profit- 
able employment on shore. A few years ago a firm 
of Scottish herring curers was induced to establish 
a branch at Port St. Mary, and this so stimulated the 
local fishermen that a fleet was equipped and sent to 
sea, and a profitable fishery ensued. That was in the 
summer of 1910, and the same conditions have held 
good more or less since. But the prices obtained by 
the men for their catch have fluctuated, notably in 
accordance with the market facilities and the amount 
of competition between rival buyers and curers. In 
Igio-12, with one buyer, the price was 18s. the cran; 
in 1913, with four buyers, the price rose to 4os.; in 
1914, with two buyers, the price was 30s.; in 1915, 
with four buyers, the maximum price was 9g1s.; while 
in the present summer (1916), with five rival buyers, 
the record price of 97s. a cran was reached. 
From this record of recent years, and from what one 
® For further details reference must be made to the successive Annual 
Reports of the Committee. 
4 All this work has been recorded in detail in recent Annual Reports o 
the Lancashire Committee. 
