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exceptionally qualified as to be able to combine the duties of marine biologist with 

 those at present performed by the Superintendent-Inspector of Pearl Banks. 



To secure a really competent officer, a substantial salary would have to be allotted 

 to the post and, as we know, pearl fishery work can only be carried out on the Madras 

 eoast for a maximum of five mouths in the year, On the other hand, the potentialities 

 of profitable research in other directions are practically unlimited and I think that the 

 time is now ripe, and economic fishery science sufficiently developed, to carry out the 

 suggestion of organizing a Fisheries Department as suggested twenty years ago by the 

 Hon'ble Mr. H. Sullivan Thomas. 



If this were done, and an officer appointed as Director, he might be instructed to 

 oixe his primary attention to the reorganization of the pearl bank inspectional 

 methods, the proper charting and landmarking of the beds, the elaboration of a 

 scheme for the culture of oysters — cultching and transplantation chiefly, the 

 recruitment of an adequate diving labour force prior to any fishery and, if possible, 

 the means for the mechanical raising of oysters by means of dredges and trawls. 



Control of the chank fishery should be placed with him. He would elaborate 

 fishing methods, experimenting especially with a suitable modification of the oyster 

 dredge ; if successful, he would take steps to ensure the adoption of such improved 

 mothods by the native chank fishers. He would also investigate the feasibility of the 

 artificial hatching and breeding of chanks — a promising departure that opposes few 

 difficulties to success. 



Other shellfish of economic value are the Window-pane oyster (Placuna Placenta) 

 and the Edible oyster. Large quantities of the former have been fished in a land- 

 locked bav in Ceylon and the lease of this fishery has yielded considerable sums to the 

 revenue in the past owing to the fact that these molluscs yield abundance of seed 

 pearls. In the Madras Presidency they are found in several places in quantity — 

 notably in Pulicat Lake, whereof the great area affords ample scope for the creation 

 of an extensive industry. 



Beche-de-mer is an industry as yet little developed on the Indian coast and one 

 susceptible of considerable enlargement. 



In the economic investigation and control of ordinary sea and fresh water fishing, 

 the field for the exercise of the beneficient labours of a Fishery Department is bound- 

 less. It is not necessary here to enter on these desirable developments in detail ; I 

 will content myself with pointing out that the fish supply at many localities on the 

 coast of the Madras Presidency might be greatly increased by the introduction of new 

 methods ; that a wide field for remunerative trawling awaits the capitalist on banks as 

 yet scarcely touched by the native fishermen ; that much help could be given to the 

 latter by a fishery expert in teaching improved methods of net tanning and by experi- 

 menting with new fibres, such as ramie, for the production of nets cheaper and 

 stronger and of better lasting properties than the materials now in use ; that the 

 cause of public health would be greatly served by the oversight that would be given 

 to fish-curing yards. 



A general survey of present fishery methods would be one of the results of the 

 working of the department suggested, and from the facts ascertained it would be 

 possible to consolidate present fishery laws, modifying or enlarging the scope of such 

 enactments as might be found advisable. 



The field for improving and augmenting the fish supply from fresh water sources 

 is still more extensive. Practically nothing is done among the natives to improve the 

 quality and the quantity of fish in tanks, a branch of work offering immense scope for 

 well directed cautious efforts. The restocking of inland waters that dry up annually 

 with selected fry of species characterised by rapid growth and good table qualities 

 should be taught, encouraged, and organized on a practical basis. Were this done, 

 the results obtained in other countries and even in some parts of Northern India 

 justify the prediction that the fresh water fish supply of the Presidency would be 

 doubled in quantity and greatly improved in quality within a very short period. 

 Nowhere in the world are the potentialities of aqriculture greater than in India and 

 as yet nothing has been done to utilise modern piscicultural knowledge. 



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