THE COD AND COD-FISHERY 291 
chances of failure of cargo for the single schooner are in- 
creased. There are simply not enough “best berths” 
to go round when the list of schooners increases beyond 
a certain point. Quite independently of man’s interfer- 
ence, the harvests of the sea, like those on the land, may 
naturally swing in cycles. So long ago as 1775 there was a 
complete failure of the cod-fishery along the north side of 
Belle Isle Strait; yet this latest year (1908) the “crop” 
has been unusually good. It may well be that the inshore 
fishing is now in a period of relatively lean years, to be 
followed by a period of fat years, — the whole swing of the 
industrial pendulum being utterly uncontrolled by the 
relatively insignificant takings of the summer fleet on the 
Labrador. Neither science nor the practical industry 
has yet obtained sufficient knowledge of the sea to declare 
the whole law which governs the annual, much less the 
age-to-age, swelling or recession of the finny flood. 
In any event the cod seem to be as plentiful as ever in 
deep water. The use of long lines by banking vessels along 
the Labrador is growing steadily in importance. The 
failure of many a schooner to find cargo may be due to the 
fact that the trap-net is the only method of capture em- 
ployed. The deepest water in which I have seen traps 
set is eighteen fathoms. If for any reason the fish, though 
as plentiful as ever, do not come right home to the rocks, 
the captain outfitted with trap-net only might wrongly 
report on this question of a possible diminution in the 
numbers of the cod in Labrador seas. 
One important cause governing the nearness of the 
approach of the cod in any year to the actual coast-line is 
undoubtedly the temperature of the water. This may 
