4 
Part III, — Ninth Annual Report 
But the small size of the ' Garland,' and its consequent inability 
to face anything but moderate weather, or to venture far from 
port, interferes very much with its usefulness. For this reason 
it has not been found possible to complete the observations, which 
have already yielded such valuable results in the inshore waters, 
by extending them to the breeding-places situated at some distance 
from the shore, which form the great source of supply to the 
territorial seas. The Scientific Investigations of the Board have 
made it clear that the inshore grounds constitute to a large extent 
a receptacle and nursery for many of the most important of the 
food fishes, and that these, almost without exception, are spawned 
remote from the coast. The old view that fishes sought bays 
and shallow waters for the purpose of spawning, is no longer 
tenable. It has therefore become of great importance, in view of 
measures for the conservation of the fish supply, that these offshore 
banks, frequented year after year by shoals of spawning fish, should 
be thoroughly explored and investigated. 
In some countries, as in Germany, the protection of the breeding 
grounds is looked upon as of even greater importance than the 
preservation of immature fish ; and the German Government have 
initiated, by the aid of large, well-equipped vessels, a series of 
surveys and explorations of the fishing-grounds in proximity to 
the German coasts. 
There are also reasons to believe that immature fish of cerUin 
kinds, as turbot, halibut, haddock and lemon sole, are more 
abundant on distant grounds than near shore. 
In view of these facts, of the impoverished condition of the shore 
fisheries, and of the significant falling off in the number of line- 
fishing boats and line fishermen along the whole East Coast of 
Scotland, which has been going on year after year since 1885, 
it is most desirable that the survey and investigation of the 
offshore spawning and fishing banks should be made with the 
least possible delay. If the ' Garland ' were replaced by a larger 
and more seaworthy vessel, capable of visiting the fishing-grounds 
in weather when an ordinary steam trawler can easily carry on 
her work, it would be within the power of the Board to push on 
these investigations, and to prevent, in a manner much more 
satisfactory than is possible under present circumstances, the 
depredations of trawlers in the waters closed against that mode 
of fishing. 
For some time past the Board has been impressed with the need 
of increasing the supplies of fish and shell-fish in the waters around 
the coast by the aid of artificial propagation. Since 1885 there 
has been a gradual, but great and almost continuous, decline in the 
yield and value of the shore fisheries. This decrease, which is con- 
sidered more in detail later, has been at an average rate of nearly 
£14,000 per annum, and therefore represents a serious loss to the 
fishermen and to the public. It was stated in last year's Report 
that after full inquiry the Board selected Dunbar as, on the whole, 
the best adapted and most convenient place on the Scottish coast 
for the purpose of carrying on operations in the hatching of sea- 
fish and shell-fish ; and that the War Office, which possesses land 
