Scottish Fisheries in August 18'i9. ISl 
Though Shetland is certainly not so much an agricultural 
country as Orkney, yet it may be hoped that the encourage- 
ment judiciously held out by the Highland Society, for the pro- 
duction of green crops in Shetland, may eventually have the 
effect of teaching these insular farmers the practicability of pro- 
viding fodder for their cattle in the spring of the year. For ages 
past this has been a great desideratum. The command of a 
month or six weeks fodder, would enable the proprietors of that 
country to stock many of their fine verdant isles with cattle, 
and to employ their hardy tenantry more exclusively m the 
different branches of the fishery. 
It is well known, that, next to the Newfoundland Banks, those 
of Shetland are the most productive in ling, cod, tusk, and 
other white fish ; and by the recent discovery of a bank, trend- 
ing many leagues to the south-westward, the British merchants 
have made a vast accession to their fishing-grounds. In the 
small picturesque Bay of Scalloway, and in some of the other 
bays and voes on the western side of the Mainland of Shet- 
land, the fishing upon this new bank, (which I humbly pre- 
sume to term the Regent Fishing-Bank, a name at once 
calculated to mark the period of its discovery, and pay a 
proper compliment to the Prince,) has been pursued with 
great success. Here small sloops, of from 15 to 25 tons bur- 
den, and manned with eight persons, have been employed. In 
the beginning of August they had this summer fished for twelve 
weeks, generally returning home with their fish once a-week. 
On an average, these vessels had caught 1000 fine cod-fish a- 
week, of which, about 600 in a dried state go to the ton, and 
these tliey would have gladly sold at about L. 15 per ton. So 
numerous are the fish upon the Regent Fishing Bank, that a 
French vessel, belonging, it is believed, to St Maloes, had sailed 
with her second cargo of fish this season ; ancj though the fisher- 
men did not mention this under any apprehension, as though 
there were danger of the fish becoming scarce, yet they seemed 
to regret the circumstance, on account of their market being 
thus pre-occupied 
* See a farther account of this fishing bank by Dr Hibbert, in this Number of 
our Journal, p. 138. — Ed. 
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