SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 87 



of such organised work before reliable conclusions could 

 be arrived at. Still the outline of the sub-divisions and 

 relations of the investigation given below may be useful 

 to the Committee as showing the complexity of such a 

 question, and the need for a very thorough systematic 

 investigation of all such fishery matters. 



Finally, I may refer to the most important event of 

 the past year in connection with Sea-Fisheries Organisa- 

 tion and Administration in this Country, viz., the trans- 

 ference of the Official Government department dealing 

 with these matters from the Board of Trade to what is 

 now the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. This must 

 be a matter of congratulation in so far as it gives to our 

 subject more of the high relative position and the im- 

 proved status to which its importance entitles it, and 

 which it possesses in most civilised countries. Although 

 not yet an independent department of State, with a 

 Minister for Fisheries, it is now conjoined on an equality 

 with the allied subject, Agriculture, under a President, 

 Lord Onslow, who recognises fully its claims to his 

 attention, and will assuredly give sympathetic and 

 adequate treatment to the new division of his department. 

 The union of Fisheries with Agriculture is a natural one, 

 which we see working well in Ireland, in several of the 

 Colonies and elsewhere. Aquiculture and Agriculture have 

 similar disciplines, and similar methods should give 

 similar results. The operations that result in the 

 harvest of the sea being now placed under the same 

 guiding hand as those that affect the harvest of the land, 

 we may hope that in the former case as in the latter the 

 returns from nature will be increased as the result of 

 scientific cultivation. 



From the scientific point of view the present division 

 of the territorial waters of England and AVales into Sea- 



