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THE FISHING INDUSTRY OF THE WEST. 255 
duction of ice as a means of preserving the fish in a fresh state, 
the delivery has extended enormously. The Fishery Commissioners, 
in 1866, estimated the supply of Trawl fish to the London 
market as equal to the supply of cattle. Since then the increase 
has been still more extensive, and, no doubt, has equalled in bulk 
and value the deliveries of the Drift Net fish during the same 
period. 
Our own Western Trawl Fishery has also been gradually in- 
creasing ; but cannot compare with the enormous advance of those 
ports I have mentioned. 
The construction of the Trawl Net is entirely different to any 
other appliance in use for fishing, and is of a very ingenious descrip- 
tion. It is made by hand, whilst the Seine and Drift Nets are 
made by machine. 
The centres of our Western Trawling Fishery are Brixham and 
Plymouth, and it employs the most important of our fishing-boats, 
especially as regards size. The fish caught by the Trawl Net are 
sole, turbot, brill, plaice, hake, ray, conger, whiting, gurnards, and 
ling, and the kinds of fish generally taken at the bottom of the 
sea on our coast. The grounds where our trawlers fish reach from 
the Wolf in the west to Portland in the east, stretching across 
the English Channel to within sight of the Caskets ; depending, of 
course, on the time of the year. 
It will be seen, moreover, that our Trawl Fishery is of consider- 
able importance, when I state that there are belonging to Brixham 
and Plymouth over two hundred trawling vessels, of an average 
tonnage of forty tons register, employing about 1,000 hands. 
Brixham possesses 144 trawling vessels, insured for £88,000, or 
averaging say £600 each. Belonging to our own port there are 
between seventy and eighty, insured for £300 each (about), which 
does not show so great an average as at Brixham. 
The rig of our trawling-smacks is principally cutter (though 
a few are dandy-rigged—the rig almost universal in the North 
of England), which is for all purposes on this part of the 
coast the best rig, as it secures the maximum. of speed with 
average wear and tear, speed being an essential element in a first- 
class Trawler with us. . 
The custom among our trawling fishermen is to go to sea on 
Monday mornings and return again, if successful, on the following 
day or the next; often the same day, according to weather, 
