450 OCEANOGRAPHY, BIONOMICS, AND AQUICULTURE. 



by the time tlie products reach the British public, when we remember 

 the very large proportion of our population who make their living, 

 directly or indirectly (as boat builders, net makers, etc.), from the fish- 

 eries, and the still larger proportion who depend for an important ele- 

 ment in their food supply upon these industries; when we think of 

 what we pay other countries — France, Holland, Norway — for oysters, 

 mussels, lobsters, etc., which we could rear in this country if our sea 

 shores and our sea bottom were properly cultivated; and when we 

 remember that fishery cultivation or aquiculture is applied zoology, we 

 can readily realize the enormous value to the nation which this direct 

 application of our science will one day have — perhaps I ought rather to 

 say, we can scarcely realize the extent to which zoology may be made 

 the guiding science of a great national industry. 



The flourishing shellfish industries of France, the oyster culture at 

 Arcachon and Marennes, and the mussel culture by bouchots in the 

 Bay of Aiguillon, show what can be done as the result of encourage- 

 ment and wise assistance from Government, with constant industry on 

 the part of the people, directed by scientific knowledge. In another 

 direction the successful hatching of large numbers (hundreds of millions) 

 of cod and plaice by Captain Dannevig in Norway, and by the Scottish 

 fishery board at Dunbar, opens up possibilities of immense practical 

 value in the way of restocking our exhausted bays and fishing banks, 

 depleted by the overtrawling of the last few decades. 



The demand for the produce of our seas is very great, and would 

 probably pay well for an increased supply. Our choicer fish and shell- 

 fish are becoming rarer and the market prices are rising. The great 

 majority of our oysters are imported from France, Holland, and America. 

 Even in mussels we are far from being able to meet the demand. In 

 Scotland alone the long-line fishermen use nearly a hundred millions 

 of mussels to bait their hooks every time the lines are set, and they 

 have to import annually many tons of these mussels at a cost of from 

 £3 to £3 10s. a ton. 



Whether the wholesale introduction of the French method of mussel 

 culture, by means of bouchots, on to our shores would be a financial 

 success is doubtful. Material and labor are dearer here, and beds, 

 scars, or scalps seem, on the whole, better fitted to our local conditions; 

 but as innumerable young mussels all around our coast perish miser- 

 ably every year for want of suitable objects to attach to, there can be 

 no reasonable doubt that the judicious erection of simple stakes or 

 plain bouchots would serve a useful purpose, at any rate in the collec- 

 tion of seed, even if the further rearing be carried on by means of the 

 bed system. 



All such aquicultural processes require, however, in addition to the 

 scientific knowledge, sufficient capital. They can not be successfully 

 carried out on a small scale. When the zoologist has once shown, as a 

 laboratory experiment in the zoological station, that a particular thing 



