of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



49 



flat fish. But the Forth seems equally well adapted by nature for certain 

 kinds of shell fish as it is for round and flat fish. We have often heard 

 of the rich oyster beds of former days. That oysters were once plentiful 

 enough can scarcely be doubted. It seems that about 1830, the 

 fishermen not satisfied with taking the large oysters for the home market 

 began to export young oysters to Holland, Belgium and England. This 

 seems to have gone on for over thirty years without any attempt at 

 oyster culture as now understood or even any steps being taken to preserve 

 a stock for breeding purposes. However, about 1869 or 1870 it was 

 found many of the beds had been destroyed with the result, that at the 

 present day the Forth only yields oysters to the value of a few hundred 

 pounds annually. 



Mussels and clams are however still fairly abundant more especially 

 along the south shore from the vicinity of Gullane Sands as far as Mickry 

 Island. Hence, although the fishermen can no longer enrich themselves 

 with oysters, they can still obtain a goodly supply of bait. 



We may conclude therefore that the Forth is naturally well adaped for 

 most kinds of fish and shellfish and that in former years it was better 

 stocked than it is at the present day. As a matter of fact, there is not, as 

 far as we are aware on the east coast of England or anywhere else on the 

 coast of Scotland, a stretch of water with so many natural advantages from 

 the fishermen's point of view as the Firth of Forth. The fresh water 

 carries with it food for mussels and other shellfish. The sea brings in 

 food for herring and other round fish. The water varies considerably in 

 depth and salinity and the bottom at one part consists of sand or mud at 

 another of gravel or shingle and at another of rocks, sometimes bare, some- 

 times covered with sea-weed and the temperature throughout the year is 

 fairly constant, there never being great heat in summer or very great cold 

 in winter. 



It may here be mentioned that as an indication that the firths and bays 

 and territorial waters generally have yielded large supplies of fish, the 

 fishing boats until comparatively recently were with few exceptions small 

 and undecked, and although the boats are now much larger than they 

 were, none of the great fishing stations can yet boast of a fleet of schooners, 

 similar to those at Grimsby or other English fishing centres, or at Glou- 

 cester and Boston in the United States. Scotland is certainly largely 

 interested in the fisheries, yet her fishermen are practically unable to com- 

 pete with the English great fleet on the fishing banks of the North Sea. 

 The English and American fishing schooners are sufficiently large to make 

 a cruise of several weeks duration to the great fishing banks, but our 

 fishermen are at the best, owing to the size of their boats, only able to 

 glean in a hurried fashion the banks from which the English vessels reap 

 an abundant harvest. As a result of this, the amount of fish landed in 

 Scotland except during the great summer herring fishing, differs strikingly 

 from the amount landed in England, e.g., the fish landed on the coasts of 

 Scotland during April (1887) was valued at £62,161, while the fish landed 

 at the English fishing stations during the same months was valued at 

 £328,806, — this is exclusive of shell fish, the estimated value of which is 

 £19,855. The boats are increasing in size year by year, and probably in 

 another generation we shall have a fleet of well-found schooners able to 

 stay at sea for months at a time, and to fish thoroughly the offshore banks, 

 and it may be to take part in the Iceland cod and halibut fisheries and the 

 great Lofoden fisheries, which in 1886 yielded to the Norwegians over 

 31,000,000 cod. 



Having referred at some length to the natural advantages of the Firth 

 of Forth as a fishing centre, we shall without discussing St Andrews and 

 G 



