102 PRESENT CONDITION OF FISHING GROUNDS. 



supply. The only serious question that appears is the steady 

 diminution in the number of the sailing-boats and of the men 

 fishing in them. Several factors probably are connected with 

 this change — the first is the abundant supply brought in by the 

 steam-trawlers and steam-liners to great centres in easy com- 

 munication with railways and a large population, so that the 

 prices paid to outlying towns and villages less favourably 

 situated are greatly reduced and even rendered uncertain. 



The number of powerful ships with great trawls probably 

 tend to scatter the fishes, and render them more wary in regard 

 to all kinds of capture, and it may be to keep further from land, 

 and while the fishes may not, taking a broad survey of them, be 

 very much reduced, and the totals in the market even increase, 

 yet each ship and boat probably secures much less than in former 

 times. 



In any case, the thoughtful perusal of the foregoing annual 

 statistics of fishes caught by line and trawl does not give rise 

 to dissatisfaction, and, taken with the results of the work in 

 1884, and the ten years' experiments of the "Garland," together 

 with other observations, conduces to confidence in the future of 

 the sea-fisheries. 



