488 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



Jtot 19, 1S8&. 



:i nil in providing them with salt, barrels, atci, 

 and in transporting nin.l distributing the fish. This may go ! 

 some way toward doubling ilic numbers already given. tint, 

 as loci, clothing, food, and houses are as necessary for 



fishermen as their boats and nets, and as i lie people who' 

 supply iiiem with these necessaries arc as dependent on the 

 fish taken as the fishermen themselves, tbey loo must be 

 i total of those who art: maintained by our fisher- 

 ies Thiswillin all give aboul 1,000.000 fouls, or three 



pi i 01 "i Of the population of the United Kingdom. Of 

 litis calculation, however, only tin foundation, or the 120,- 

 000 men afloat and employed in fishing, is actually ascer- 

 tained !.\ muni, ration. This is about as many as the effect 

 ivi ol •<••' British army, and nearly three limes the number 

 of the seamen in tin' British navy. 



How Professor Leone Levi obtained the £11, 000,000 be 



lie value of the fish taken in the British and Irish 



fish. rh'S, In, does not tell us. When in Scotland last year 1 



was told thai the lake ol' the previous year had been sold for 



£3,850,000. Of this £800,000 had been taken at the fishing 



buvuson lie.- Ahcrdconsnirc coast, which is a si 



thin Ihe assessed rental of the whole county. Those ol us 



whose memories go hack to the days of old Snvlhfield 



rl recollect that, it used then tO be said that more 



■ paid for fish at Billingsgate than for cattle and 



Bflj ep ai Siiiilhrield. But Ibis was before Loudon bud grown 



to its present vasiiie-s. and when Billingsgate was in a 



.id: than it is now the tish market, for the whole 



m 



It would be, interesting to know the rank of the different 

 fish in the order of value 1 suppose the herring, Ihe poor 

 man's ti-h, would rank first, Tne Scotch sometimes export 

 more ilcm l,00fl,000 barrels in u year. To ibis we must, add 

 what are reserved in Scotland forborne consumption, and 

 Ihcn the whole, of ihe English herring fishery, Ihe produce. 

 of which, as fresh herrings, bloaters ami red herrings, is, I. 

 mainly consumed in this country. Posaiblj the 

 fish iint would 'occupy the second place would not be cod 

 or mackerel, but, the sole, which is in season all the year, is 

 (1 $ ni i 'I favorite, and is seen in every lib shop in every 

 low u ...linos! without Fail every day, excepting when a con- 

 tinuance of bad weather has put a slop to trawling. Our 

 expeusivi fish, salmon and turbot, would, I sup- 

 pose, in their respective aggregates, on account of the rela- 

 illness of their supply, tall below cod. 

 ,, thi Ssh already mentioned a great many other names 

 miisi be added to complete the list ol our common sorts— 

 '.'..inn', ■, ,1 Its, pollack, eels, halibut, skate, sprats, John 

 flOries, pilchards, gurnets, haddock, ling, bass, red and gray 



, 'II I h iic'ii.ion trout, or any other fresh-water iish. 



In Yarrelfs work on English fish 831 species are figured and 

 eater part Of these arc gastronomic- 

 ally and economically useless. But the number shows how 

 pted the seas w bich surround us are to fish life. 

 While endeavoring In form an estimate of our fisheries, 

 WD must not omit our mollusks and crustaceans — lobsters, 

 BhrimpS, prawns, cockles, periwinkles, pinpatches, mussels, 

 i iii oysters. Must of these are taken in surprising .man- 



, in none probably does the supply reach the de- 

 mand. I do not know how many Norwegian lobsters are 

 added yearly lo the produce of our own coasts, tail fifty 



mi ,.i Xarrtll mentioned that we took 1.000,000 of tLcni 

 annually from the Dutch, who had caught them on the 



M.ri Norway. Onn would like to know what the supply 



of shrimps reaches. This is the luxury of the million, and 



, . i, ill) of the wives of the million. The poor woman, 



li after a day's or a week's hard work, thinks some little 



l,i,;,.,;. I .. ' rletl table allowable, generally indulges her 

 self in a pint of shrimps. Last year we took 8,650,600 

 pounds of shrimps from tin- Dutch. 



iply of oysters has long been deplorably deficient, 

 and there appears no probability of our ever again being 

 able to obtain What we require from our own resources. 

 Sixteen years ago. after a visit to the United States, during 

 Which f bad seen bow apparently iuexhaustiblc is the 

 abundance of this mollusk along their Eastern and Southern 

 L'O -, I suggested that we might draw upon them for sup- 



nl "i failing supply? Three years ago we paid 



i hem e oi.im.io for fresh oysters. But this source of supply 

 is not to be depended on* for in the Stales the mass of the 

 people are so Well off, and the population increases so rap- 

 idly -the yeai | ■' i ioi beingnow above 2,000,000 souls 

 — thai. I hey may themselves, before many years have passed, 

 consume all thai lb _ir coasts cau yield. 



Our opposite neighbors, the French and Dutch, the 

 Danes, the Norwegians, and Swedes, in Ihe matter of fish- 



i. participate ito our advantages, but not to an equal ex- 

 tor though they more or less fish in Ihe same kind of 

 water as ourselves, yet they have not, as wehave, a northern 

 OUthern, and an' eastern coast, in addition to a western. 

 They have a one tided, we. a four-sided fishing ground. Still 

 they' make a great deal of their scantier advantages. 



The French are very successful fishermen. Boulogne, its 

 mi; , or us know, is great in fishing. If need not, fear com- 

 , ., i, i - Tarmoulh, Grimsby, Whitby, Scarborough, or 

 Filey. Unfortunately the French can hardly be said to have 

 I, , i ranee at South Kensington. Since their great 

 . . i ,i rophe thev have shown great backwardness in coming 

 , , ,; n. li matters as exhijitious, or indeed in any 

 way, with the execution just now of filibustering in the China 

 i and round about Africa, in places where they suppose 

 —but in defiance of the possibilities of the coveted regions— 

 that, they will be able to establish profitable colonics. Their 

 home fisheries are worth to them more than all these ex- 

 pected conquests are ever likely to prove. In 18*1 Hey 



i , fed .so, 875 fishermen, who had 32,125 vessels, of an 



, ,i i capacity of 150,000 tons. To these their report 

 adds 00,485 riparians, men. women and children, who have 

 to assist, in the fishing operations from the shore. The 

 produce of their fishing for 1880 was valued at 87.000,000 



franc . In IS81 it was somewhat, less through a falling oil 

 in the take of sardines. Their oyster fishing is worth 18,000,- 

 000 francs n year. 



The amphibious Dutch are. bad to beat on land or water, 

 but particularly on the water. Two or three centuries ago, 

 they were the boldest, most ingenious, and most successful 

 fishermen in the world. Amsterdam, their great trading- 

 port, was said to have been built on herring bones. For 

 their export of sab herrings, and the wealth it, brought them 

 they were indebted to one Wilhelm Beukelzoon, ai 



Bie'rvliet. What he discovered was a method ol St 

 Ihe hewing that they might be packed in barrels for 

 r.ioti, for of course it was not to him first of all men 

 i, ,, ,.; ,,i ,, ;,, . i ne occurred. Threi • ituri 

 bis day the herring fisheries of the Baltic are mentio 



■e iii other their produce must have been 

 salted ; and in in 1200 dried herrings, which must, have been 



of 



salting 



ed, and 



previously salted, are mentioned among the articles used in 



victualing a vessel sent from Yarmouth to Norway, What 

 the immortal Beukelzoon hit upon appears to have bceu the 

 happy idea, not to dry them, led to pickle them in moist 

 .alt, and so pack them In hulk in barrels, with the certainly 

 hat they would remain untainted. This was a speedily 

 effected and cheap process, and the result was a much 

 .heaper and much better article. The great man died A. f), 

 1449, and was buried in his native town of Bicrvliet, and a 

 grateful country decreed a statue to his memory. Nearly a 

 century afterward the biggest, potentate the world had seen 

 since 'the days of the Roman Cajsare, the (Treat Emperor 

 Oharles V.. having capacity enough to understand how 

 much pickled herrings had done for the Netherlands, went 

 on a pilgrimage to this tomb at Bicrvlicl.. But we cannot 

 suppose Ihat he went so far in his thoughts as to compare 

 the effects Beukelzoon's discovery bad had upon his country 

 with Ihe effects his own ambition, high politics, and wars 

 had had upon Europe; or that he asked himself which of 

 the two, the herring cunror the emperor, had been the great- 

 est benefactor lo mankind? 



The Dutch now take in tile "North Sea somewhat, over 

 800,000,000 herring annually. These are salted and barreled 

 according to old Beukelzoon's receipt. They also take 

 about 50,000,000 a year in the Zuider Zee. These, for the 

 most part, are sold fresh. But these figures are insignificant 

 compared with those ot the Scotch hen ing fishery, " the ex- 

 port of which is 1,000,000 barrels or at least 700,000,000 fish. 

 The Dutch have also a very large anchovy fishery in the 

 Zuider Zee, which cm olovs 1,200 boats, and in a good year 



gives 70,000 baskets of '3,500 Iish each, or 250. 000, ,)' an 



chevies. We pay them very large sums for fish taken by 

 them in the North Sea. Fifty years ago, in the time of pro- 

 tection, and so of high duties on foreign fish, and before the 

 days of packing tish in ice ami carrying it so packed lo 

 market in steamers, we paid them, on Yarrcll's authority, 

 £811,000 a year for turbot, and £15.000 for the lobsters that 

 were to accompany it to the table. The Dutch have also a 

 very largo cod fishery, A great part of what they take on 

 i in I io-uer Lank is sold fresh. Of salted codfish "Germany 

 and Belgium took from them about 2,000,000 lbs. 



The Belgians are, for their numbers, large consumers of 

 Iish. It is" sold annually to the amount of about £170,000 in 

 the market of Ostend. 'More than half of this is taken by 

 Belgian fishermen. The rest is bought, chiefly from French 

 and English boats. We may suppose that Antwerp also 

 docs .something considerable in the tishine business. .\ grea) 

 deal. too. of fish is imported by rail from Holland. 



The fisheries of Denmark proper are worth about £250,- 

 001) annually. The most important <ii Ihe Iish taken in the 

 Danish waters are the eels of the two Belts and of the Sound. 

 Germany is the chief customer for Danish fish. The cod 

 fishery of Iceland is worth about .|,nno,no0, and the herring 

 about 1, ."00, 000 crowns, that is together about £-.50, 000 I 

 year. 



We have now reached the fisheries of Norway, which pos- 

 sess a higher historic interest than those of Holland, In 

 Norway a" far more considerable proportion of the popttli 

 lion is' employed in fishing than in any other country i 

 Europe. As far back as we know anything about the ma 

 ter, it never was otherwise. There never was a time know 

 to history when its people did not obtain a large proportio 

 of their' sustenance from the. sea. Nature had given them 

 little on land, but in the sea more than she bad given t. 

 other people. She had also given them inexhaustible h 

 for building their vessels, and, at the same time, a 

 which, with its innumerable fjords, was the most couve 

 in the world for fishing. It would have been strange if. at 

 some time or other, something had not come of this 

 nation of advantages: and something did come of it which 

 has left its mark on the world. These advantages it wi 

 that a thousand years ago made them such redoubtable sei 

 rovers. If the Norsemen had not been a people of hardy and 

 venturesome fishermen, discontented with their own term 

 (i'.-w.y. ilun would not, have settled in France; William of 

 Normandy would not have brought the language of .France 

 and his Norman barons here; the language in which Shakes- 

 peare thought would not have been created: the Eudish 

 -would not be what they are, nor would the people of the 

 United States and of Australia be what they are. What this 

 Exhibition brings before us is fish, fishing, and fishermen; 

 and now we are carried back to a point in the history of our 

 subject which invests it with profound interest. It was the 

 Iish, the fishing, and the fishermen of Norway Which, at a 

 peculiar -juncture in the course of human affairs, originated 

 and set in motion a series of events which formed the Eng- 

 lish race and their descendants, the American and the Aus- 

 tralian; and these are they who are lo possess and people 

 half the world. The forests of dreary Norway and the 

 shoals of codfish that peopled its waters created the Norse 

 sea-rover. In him was the fountain-head of a stream of 

 events which has already had more effect on the world than 

 the conquests and laws of Rome; and the effects of which, 

 through our descendants, will continue to expand till they 

 are felt by the whole human race. This it is that makes the 

 exhibit sent by Lady Brassy of the reproduction of a Viking 

 vessel, which" was 'lately found in a sepulchral mound in 

 Norway, one of the most interesting objects in the Exhibi- 

 tion, and one, too, that is most closely connected with its 

 purpose. We are afraid, however, that the vast majority of 

 visitors as they stand by it will not feel so much emotion as 

 thev will think they ought to feel while looking at; the 

 feather cloak exhibited by the same lady, and which speaks 

 to Ihe mind of nothing 'beyond barbarian vanity, the cruel 

 sufferings of myriads of harmless birds, and an enormous 

 amount of misapplied human labor. 



The present fisher population of Norway, though it is in 

 these days, compared with what are now the resources of 

 other na'lions, relatively powerless, yet is in itself something 

 considerable. The last census returns it at about. SO.OIIU 

 men, or 11 percent, of the whole population, while 50,000 

 men, or 7 per cent, more of the population, are employed in 

 the shipping business; thai is, if the two be combined) 18 

 per cent, : and it lo these we add those dependent on them, 

 we reach to half the population. Of these 80.000 fisher- 

 men, 36,309 are employed in the great Lofoten cod fishery 

 in 0,800 open boats resembling the Viking vessel just men- 

 tioned These men take on an averauc of late years 20,300,- 

 000 codfish. Tie lime must, come when, vast as is this 

 quantity of fish, none of it -will be salted, but the whole of 

 it packed in ice, and so carried by steamers and railways to 

 the inland markets of Europe. Norway has the fish which 

 all would be glad to get, She has also tin: ice 6 ir preserv 

 ingit. Th» steamboats and railways for distri Utl ig li 

 already exist. Nothing is required but, Ihe capil li tor pro- 

 viding the. machinery for using the already existing means 

 of transport and for distribution, and the mind capable of 



ruivsly:.: 

 scviptioi 

 cries ha 



seeing what is required, and how il is to be done. On the 

 other side of the Atlantic a single season would suffice for 

 itting all the necessary arrangements in complete and sue 

 ■ssfnl operation. We, however, in the Old World con- 

 nue to feel and act as if the seas and national boundaries 

 liich separated us from one another centuries ago, were 

 still as prohibitive .as ever of intercourse and interchange. 



In the northern cod fisheries, between the LOfotCIl I I 



and the North Cape, 14,000 men are employed in 4,000 ves- 

 sels. In the. southern fisheries, between Cape Stat and 

 I'roudjem, 2,000 vessels are manned by 7.000 men. To 

 these three main branches of the od i ',.- must be added 

 mm; small deep-sea fisheries. These export tosrefher yearly 

 .'5,000,000 fish diied and salted, which if sold fresh would 

 equal 375,000 Ions. Norway is alile to supply every family 

 in Europe (supposing the number of families to be 60,000,- 

 1 ' . ;,.]i containing five souls) with thirty pounds of fresh 

 fish annually. The export, of pickled "herrings is about 

 000,000 barrels a year. 



The value of the Swedfth fisheries does not reach £600,- 

 000 a year. 



Germany has some advantages for fishing in both the ex- 

 tent, and the variety of its water area. It has access to the 

 North Sea, and possesses the whole of the southern shore of 

 the Baltic. From its numerous huge rivers, and the vast, 

 number of lakelets spread throughout its eastern provinces- 

 it derives very considerable supplies of many .species of the 

 salmon and carp tribes. But the most rema'rkable fact con- 

 nected with its fisheries is their inadequacy to meet tie 

 demands of so large an inland population. Germany has, 

 therefore, in these days of cheap and rapid transport, be- 

 come a larger importer of foreign fish than any other conn 

 try. Stimulated by this shortness of the home supply the 

 Germans have of late aiven much alien t; m -.. fish-breeding, 

 and to legislation which aims at increasing the supply. Not- 

 withstanding, however, all this, we find the city o! Berlin 

 exporting annually thirty millions of crav-fish, chiefly to 

 Belgium and France; not at all because they are not appre- 

 ciated at Berlin, but because the Berliner-s are unable to pay 

 for them the price obtainable elsewhere. The introductory 

 notice to ihe German fisheries— it happens to be almost ail 



of'' •preb'i'storic discov'eries."which 'he ye brought (Migbfsur' 

 prising facts, which shows how close ly connet ti I with the 

 dawnof civilization was the practice olflsnittj " 

 to tell us that ,- ia historic times fishing was . hue illy imp it 

 taut factor in the economy of ihe nation; and thai il was to 

 a great extent Ihe source from Which the Hanseatic League 

 derived its power." 



The facts connected with the fisheries of Italy that are 

 most woi thy of notice are the variety of fish captured, lor 

 the Mediterranean species outnumber those of the coasts of 

 western Europe; Ihe smallness of the money value of the 

 capture (£1, 000. 000), compared with the number of men en- 

 gaged in the fisheries (00,000); and the inadequacy of the 

 supply, for the imports amount to £800.000 a year. The 

 most Valuable product of the Italian seas is coral. After 

 that come the niiehovy, the tunny, and the sardine. 

 The fisheries Of Spain are no exception to tie general 

 ich has in that, country overtaken every de- 

 port and Of industry. All kinds ot deep tish- 

 >en abandoned. But even the small lake of 

 fisheries is more than the Spaniards tin m 

 require, for they export ti-h to ihe value of aboul £80,000 a 

 year. 



The most interesting and satisfactorily executed introduc- 

 tory notice in the official catalogue is that of the United 

 States Commissioner. It is everywhere quite intelligible. 

 It gives all one wants to know, and slates the grounds of its 

 calculations; for instance, it distinguishes— and nowhere 

 else do we find this distinction— between the prices received 

 for his products by the fisherman and the wholesale market 

 rates. We find tliat in 1880 the first price, that received by 

 the fishermen, was nearly £0,000,0011. but that last year, a 



toe amount, of' fislTlaken and in the prices, lie h tiolei SIC 

 market price must have been about £30,000,000. In the ex- 

 cellence and finish— these in the end are true I cony, — o] 

 their apparatus and implements, in the size of Ihe Vessels 

 employed, in the extent of water fished oyer, and in Ihe 

 value 'of the iish taken, our kindred on the other side of the 

 Atlantic already srand at the head of this industry. This 

 fact is highly significant when we recall the dearni is of 

 labor in the United States, and that all the hands that can 

 be had are required for the pri sang work of reclaiming and 

 rendering habitable their new continent only now in course 

 of occupation. Nature, however, has not bestowed on any 

 other country such a field for fisheries as on them. It is in- 

 deed a field thai embraces the two meat oceans; they both 

 are open to American enterprise from the Arctic to the An- 

 lartie zone, in both of which Ihe hardy and adventurous 

 fishermen of New England pursue the whale and the seal. 

 Their own coast* on the east a Florida, and in the (vest in 

 California and New Mexico all but touch the northern 

 tropic. Their vast lakes, their mighty rivers, their enor- 

 mous extent of coast give them 1,000 species of fish Lin 

 all these advantages would run to waste in the hands of a 

 dull and huv race. They have all along taken to fishing, 

 and succeeded in ir. because they came of a good fishing 

 stock. The first settlers of New England came chiefly from 

 Norfolk and Devonshire, our two chief fishing counties. 

 The effect of this is visible in the motive which guided them 

 iu the selection of the spot chosen for their first settlement. 

 It, was because they saw that thai part of the coast possessed 

 peculiar advantages for the prosecution of fisheries. This 

 wss in the \ear 1620. A hundred and fifty years later Acw 

 England was employing ±,105 men and Olio vessels in the 

 Newfoundland fisheries; a great, venture for those uilant 

 communities. A little more thau another century has 

 pissed, and we find them iu possession of absolutely the 

 lur.-est fishing industry iu the world. 



line greatest contrast iu the Exhibition is that between- 

 ,i,, | .; I,, - ;, iii, youngest nation in the world, at which 



wehavi Iu I I ,ookins arid thos ol the most ancient. 



Iu the exhibits of the United Slates every appliance is char- 

 acterized almost without regard to cost, by the effort to 

 adapt it to its purpose as completely as thought and mate- 

 rials now available allow. In China Ihe ruling idea is to 

 do everything as cheaply as possible, and as much as pos- 

 sible in' the way that was found to be the cheapest some 

 thousands of years ago, and all the while to have very scan! 

 consideration' for the human agent. The fishn 

 generally the only home of the fisherman and of bis family; 

 thej is ■ -i as little as life can be supported o" ; all Hie ap- 

 paratus isas cheap and simple as is Compatible with taking 

 enough fish to support the family. 



There is nothing in the twenty-three acres the Exhibition 



