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15 years ago and the fishing-power is certainly 20—30 — 40 times as large 

 now as then — and yet the market is not even fully supplied ; we might have 

 expected it would have been overstocked man} 7 times. Nor do the official 

 statistics show any corresponding encrease in the total profit of late years. 

 (See pg. 56.) 



And then, how are we to explain that the same men who have long 

 been so satisfied with (he excellent fishing in the Oattegat, now equip cutters 

 in order to go to Iceland and fish for plaice there, in spite of the great risk 

 which is always attached to the first experiments in that hue? 



How are we to understand that the large plaice (the 3-group, the grown- 

 up ones) have become so rare in the Oattegat, if we do not suppose that the 

 stock of plaice has formerly been of such a nature that it was better able to supply 

 the market with fish, /lain it is now? 



We must believe that the reason of the complaints of the plaice-fishery 

 is not only that too large capitals have been invested in it, but particularly 

 that the productivity of the very stock must have been diminished. — 



There are those who wall say, perhaps, that there is no reason to mind 

 these complaints: all fishing is subject to fluctuations of which nian is not 

 master; the plaice-fishery will certainly be better again some day without our 

 help — nay, we can do nothing which will really be of an}' help for it — 

 and they wall no doubt refer to fluctuations in the fishery of herrings, of 

 mackerel and garfish, of cod, etc. 



To these opinions, however, we can offer the following objections: 



1) The ]">laice (and all other flat-fishes, I suppose) is in certain biologi- 

 cal respects very different from the said fishes, so that we cannot with- 

 out further ceremony draw a parallel between them; the latter are 

 generally migrating fish, the plaice rather stationary ones. 



2) Such migrations which might be thought to decrease the stock of plaice 

 to a very great extent in all seas east of the Skaw, have not been known 

 before, as with respect to the herring, mackerel, etc., nor have they 

 evidently taken place now; for in that case they must (as stated above) 

 have influenced the large fish only; as it is the number of these only 

 which we know to have been diminished of late years, while the smal- 

 ler fish to this day live in our seas in multitudes, nay perhaps even in 

 greater numbers than in former years, when there were more large 

 ones to take up the room, 



