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Part III. — Twe7ity-seventh Annual Report 



The Quantities of Fish Landed. 



Considering first the grand totals of the fish landed, of all kinds 

 and by all methods of fishing, the tables show that the aggregate quantity 

 in the twenty-one years, 1888-1908. amounted to 134.561,059 cwts., or an 

 average of 6,407,669 cwts. per annum over the whole period. The 

 greater part of this belongs, however, to the later years. Thus, if two 

 periods of ten years each are taken, the first including the years 1888-1897 

 and the second the years 1899-1908, it will be found that the aggregate 

 quantity of fish landed in the former amounted to 56,609,420 cwts., or an 

 average of 5,660,942 cwts. per annum, while in the latter period the 

 quantity was 71,393,87 1 cwts., the average per annum being 7,139,387 cwts., 

 indicating an increase of about 26 per cent. When the quantities for each 

 successive year are studied, as by means of graphic diagrams, the rise in 

 the aggregate is very obvious from the year 1899 onwards. In only one 

 of the fourteen years before 1902 was the general average for the twenty- 

 one years exceeded (in 1898) ; in all the later years that average was 

 exceeded. If the extreme years of the series, 1888 and 1908, are con- 

 trasted, the increase brought out amounts to about 87 per cent. 



Up to the year 1892 particulars are not furnished as to the method of 

 fishing by which the fish were taken. But from that year on the fish 

 landed are summarised under the headings of line-caught fish, trawl-caught 

 fish, and net-caught fish. The two first-named groups comprise fish which 

 live upon or near the bottom of the sea, and are commonly designated 

 demersal fish; they include round fishes, as cod, haddocks, ling, etc., all 

 kinds of flat-fishes, and skates and rays. The net-caught fish comprise 

 those taken mostly by drift-nets, and include the herring — which is by far 

 the most important in these statistics — the mackerel, and the sprat, and 

 this group is usually called pelagic fishes. In the tables, sparlings 

 (Osmerus eperlanus) are included with the pelagic fishes, but the quantities 

 are so insignificant that they may be neglected in considering the totals 

 of the net-caught fish. 



The quantity of demersal fish taken, whether by line or trawl, in the 

 seventeen years, 1892-1908, amounted to 36,442,218 cwts., or an average 

 of 2,143,660 cwts. per annum, and the total quantity formed a little over 

 32 per cent, of the whole of the fishes landed. In the first eight years of 

 the period, 1892-1899, the aggregate quantity of demersal fishes landed by 

 liners and trawlers was 15,252,579 cwts., the average per annum being 

 1,906,572 cwts. ; in the last eight years, 1901-1908, the quantity was 

 19,355,141 cwts., the average per annum being 2,419,393 cwts., or an 

 increase amounting to about 27 per cent. Contrasting the extreme years 

 of the series, 1892 and 1908, the increase amounted to about 64 per cent. 

 Study of the figures for successive years shows that the quantity of 

 demersal fishes landed gradually rose from 1892 to 1896, when it was 

 2,143,947 cwts.; it then slowly fell, with but slight fluctuation, to 1900, 

 when it was 1,834.498 cwts.; since then it has gradually and steadily 

 risen to 1908, when it amounted to 2,900,811 cwts. In the first period, 

 1892-1899, the percentage of bottom fishes to the total fishes landed 

 amounted to about 33 per cent. ; in the second period, 1901-1908, it was 

 about 32 per cent. Thus, while the quantity of those fishes taken by the 

 line and the trawl has increased absolutely and considerably, it has barely 

 maintained its position in relation to the other class, the pelagic fishes, 

 which means substantially the herring. 



The tables show that, of the two methods of fishing by which the 

 demersal fishes are taken, the greater quantity was caught by the line up 

 to the year 1899, when the line and the trawl contributed about half of 

 the total. After that, however, the quantity taken by the trawl steadily 

 and continuously rose, while the quantity taken by line diminished, but 



