The Harvest of the Sea / A contribution to the natural and economic history of the British food fishes

by James Glass Bertram

As has been mentioned in a previous chapter of this volume, the supply of haddocks and other Gadidæ was once so plentiful around the British coasts, that a short line, with perhaps a score of hooks, frequently replenished with bait, would be quite sufficient to capture a few thousand fish. The number of hooks was gradually extended, till now they are counted by the thousand, the fishermen having to multiply the means of capture as the fish become less plentiful. About forty years ago the percentage of fish to each line was very considerable. Eight hundred hooks would take about 750 fish; but now, with a line studded with 4000 hooks, the fishermen sometimes do not take 100 fish. It was recently stated by a correspondent of the John o’ Groat Journal, a newspaper published in the fishing town of Wick, that a fish-curer there contracted some years ago with the boats for haddocks at 3s. 6d. per hundred, and that at that low price the fishing yielded the men from £20 to £40 each season; but that now, although he has offered the fishermen 12s. a hundred, he cannot procure anything like an adequate supply.

As the British sea-fisheries afford remunerative employment to a large body of the population, and offer a favourable investment for capital, it is surely time that we should know authoritatively whether or not there be truth in the falling-off in our supplies of herring and other white fish. At one of the Glasgow fish-merchants’ annual soirees, held a year or two ago it was distinctly stated that all kinds of fish were less abundant now than in former years, and that in proportion to the means of capture the result was less. Mr. Methuen reiterated such opinions again and again. “I reckon our fisheries,” said this enterprising fish-merchant on one occasion, “if fostered and properly fished, a national source of wealth of more importance and value than the gold-mines of Australia, because the gold mines are exhaustible; but the living, propagating, self-cultivating gift of God is inexhaustible, if rightly fished by man, to whom they are given for food. It is evident anything God gives is ripe and fit for food. ‘Have dominion,’ not destruction, was the command. Any farmer cutting his ripe clover grass would not only be reckoned mad, but would, in fact, be so, were he to tear up the roots along with the clover, under the idea that he was thus obtaining more food for his cattle, and then wondering why he had no second crop to cut. His cattle would starve, himself and family be beggared, and turned out of their farm as improvident and destructive, who not only beggared themselves, but to the extent of their power impoverished the people by destroying the resources of their country. The farmer who thus destroys the hopes of a rising crop by injudicious farming is not only his own enemy, but the enemy of his country as well.” Such evidence could be multiplied to any extent if it were necessary, but I feel that quite enough has been said to prove the point. It is a point I have no doubt upon whatever, and persons who have studied the question are alarmed, and say it is no use blinking the matter any longer—that the demand for fish as an article of food is not only beginning to exceed the supply, but that the supply obtained, combined with waste of spawn and other causes, is beginning to exceed the breeding power of the fish. In the olden time, when people only caught to supply individual wants, fish were plentiful, in the sense that no scarcity was ever experienced, and the shoals of sea-fish, it was thought at one time, would never diminish; but since the traffic became a commercial speculation the question has assumed a totally different aspect, and a sufficient quantity cannot now be obtained. Who ever hears now of monster turbot being taken by the trawlers? Where are the miraculous hauls of mackerel that used to gladden the eyes of the fishermen? Where are now the waggon-loads of herring to use as manure, as in the golden age of the fisheries? I do not require to pause for the reply—echo would only mock my question by repeating it. Exhausted shoals and inferior fish tell us but too plainly that there is reason for alarm, and that we have in all probability broken at last upon our capital stock!

What then, if this be so, will be the future of the British fisheries? I have already, and more than once, in preceding pages, hinted my doubts of the existence of the enormous fish-supplies of former days; in my opinion the supposed plentifulness of all kinds of fish must in a large degree have been a myth, or at least but relative, founded in all probability on the fluctuating demand and the irregular supply. Were there not an active but unseen demolition of the fish-shoals, and were these shoals as gigantic as people imagine them to be, the sea would speedily become like stirabout, so that in time ships would not be able to sail from port to port. Imagine a few billions of herrings, each pair multiplying at the rate of thirty thousand per annum! picture the codfish, with its million ratio of increase; and then add, by way of enhancing the bargain, a million or two of the flat fish family throwing in their annual quota to the total, and figures would be arrived at far too vast for human comprehension. In fact, without some compensating balance, the waters on the globe would not contain a couple of years’ increase! If fish have that tendency to multiply which is said, how comes it that in former years, when there was not a tithe of the present demand, when the population was but scant, and the means of inland carriage to the larger seats of population rude and uncertain, the ocean did not overflow and leave its inhabitants on its shores?

It seems perfectly clear that we have hitherto seriously exaggerated the stock; it could never have been of the extent indicated, because then no draughts could have had any great effect, no matter how enormous they might have been. From various natural causes, some of which I have indicated in a former chapter, the stock has been kept in balance; and it seems now perfectly clear that by a course of fishing so excessive as that carried on at present, coupled with the destruction incidental to unprotected breeding, we must at all events speedily narrow if not exhaust the capital stock. We have done so in the case of the salmon; and the best remedy for that evil which has yet been discovered is cultivation—pisciculture, in fact—which science, or rather art, I have already treated of on its own merits. In ancient days the land yielded sufficient roots and fruits for the wants of its then population without cultivation; but as population increased and larger supplies became necessary, cultivation was tried, and now in all countries the culture of the land is one of the main employments of the people. The sea, too, must be cultivated, and the river also, if we desire to multiply or replenish our stock of fish.

As to the introduction of strange fishes, either sea or river, I for one will be glad to see them, if they are suitable. It would of course be a great misfortune to introduce any fish into our waters that would only become fat by preying on those fishes which are at present plentiful. Some naturalists think that the introduction of Silurus is a misfortune; I am not of that opinion, because in the kind of water suitable for the growth of Silurus glanis no other fish of any value is to be found, so that no ill could be done. The introduction into our British waters of another fish has been advocated—viz. the Goorami. It is a Chinese fish and has been introduced with great success into the Mauritius, and M. Coste is of opinion that it may be acclimatised in France, indeed he is trying the experiment. The Goorami, it seems, is a delicious fish, so far as its flavour is concerned, and grows to a great size in a short time. I need not say any more on this part of my subject. If the man is a benefactor to his country who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, what shall be said of the man who introduces to us a new food-fish?

Were we better acquainted with the natural history of fish, it would be easy to regulate the fisheries. The everlasting demand for sea-produce has caused the sea-fishing, like the salmon-fishing, to be prosecuted at improper seasons, and fish have been, indeed are daily, to a large extent, sold in a state that renders them quite improper for human food. Another cause of the constantly-lessening supplies may be also mentioned. Up till a recent period it was thought all fish were migratory, and the reason usually assigned for unsuccessful fishing was that the fish had removed to some other place! Thus the fact of a particular colony having been fished up was in some degree hidden, chiefly from ignorance of the habits of the animal. This migratory instinct, so far as our principal sea-fish are concerned, is purely mythical. The rediscovery of the Rockall cod-bank must tend to dissipate these old-fashioned suppositions of our naturalists. All fish are local, from the salmon to the sprat, and each kind has its own abiding-place. The salmon keeps unfailingly to its own stream, the oyster to its own bank, the lobster to its particular rock, and the herring to its own bay. Fishermen are beginning now to understand this, and can tell the locality to which a particular fish belongs, from the marks upon it. A Tay salmon differs from a Tweed one, and Norway lobsters can be readily distinguished from those brought from Orcadia. Then, again, the fine haddocks caught in the bay of Dublin differ much from those taken in the Firth of Forth, whilst Lochfyne herrings and Caithness herrings have each distinct peculiarities.

In regard to the enormous waste of spawn which I have chronicled, what more can I say? I have in various pages of this work shown how fish-roe is wasted, and at the risk of censure for again repeating myself (I have already more than once done so purposely), I must once more ask attention to the millions of cod ova criminally wasted in the French sardine-fishery. I am presuming, in making this allusion, that cod are expressly caught with full roes for the purpose of supplying this bait. The English fishermen can hit on the sprat shoals without a ground-bait; surely the French fishermen can do what we do.

The regulation of the herring-fisheries (and the proper protection of the herring) is surrounded with innumerable difficulties, because of our scant knowledge of the natural history of the animal. I have already, and more than once, in the preceding pages of this work, alluded to the striking incongruity of protecting one fish during its spawning time, and yet making the same time in the life of another fish the legal period for its capture. But a close-time for the herring, from the fact of that fish breeding on some part of the coast all the year round, although not impossible, will be difficult to arrange. If, as is pretty certain, there be races of herring that breed in every month of the year, would it be advisable to shut up the fisheries? and if, as some writers on the natural history of the herring assert, that fish only collects into shoals at the time it is called on to obey its procreative instinct, at what other period of its existence could it be captured, even admitting that at that time of its life it is least fitted to become the food of mankind? True, we have only gone on fishing for herrings in a routine way at particular seasons of the year, and, were the experiment tried, we might hit on the shoals at a more congenial time. The shoals of particular districts—if, as I assume, the herring is very local—will have each their own spawning time, and there might be a few weeks’ close season then—not so much to save the taking of the gravid fish, as to allow them a quiet interval, during which they might deposit their spawn. The period of the herring’s reproduction might, I think, be easily determined by constructing a sea-pond, where a few of these fish could breed, and the growth of the young fish be carefully watched.

In the case of the salmon there is no difficulty about a close-time, because we know the breeding seasons of each river; but it would be difficult to divide the sea into compartments; and even if we could, and a close-time were to be instituted, would not the strict logic of the position dictate that the close-time should be for the protection of the fish during their breeding season? But again, if it be granted that the breeding season is the only time that we can take the fish, would not such a close-time be practically putting an end to the fishing? It is a curious fact, as well as a curious fishing anomaly, that we have had a close-time for herrings on the west coast of Scotland but not on the east coast! And I can trace no good that the close-time has accomplished; it is not known that it increases the supply of fish, but it is known that a close-time impedes the prosecution of the other fisheries by depriving the poor men of a supply of bait. The fishermen often use the herring as a bait for other fishes.

Although Scotland is the main seat of the herring-fishery, I should like to see statistics, similar to those collected in Scotland, taken at a few English ports for a period of years, in order that we might obtain additional data from which to arrive at a right conclusion as to the increase or decrease of the fishery for herring. So far as the capture and cure of herrings are concerned, we have in Scotland, what ought to be in every country, an excellent fishery police. The Hon. Mr. Bouverie Primrose, when giving evidence before a fishery commission, described the official duties of the Board of Scottish White-fish Fisheries as being:—“To give clearances to herring-fishery vessels going out to sea, and to receive notices from curers on shore of their intention to cure; to see to the measures for the delivery of fresh herring, as between buyer and seller; to the size of the barrel for British white cured herring, and to the quality of the cure, branding the first quality, and collecting the fees for the same; attending on the exportation; to inspect the exports in order to see that they were in proper order; preventing the use of such nets as Parliament had declared to be illegal; protecting the sprat fishermen in their rights of boundary; maintaining order on the fishery grounds, and in connection therewith carrying out the police regulations for naming and numbering boats and their sails; receiving and restoring lost fishing property; building fishery piers and harbours; protecting the spawn of herring and the herring-fisheries generally, according to Act of Parliament; maintaining herring close-time as fixed and appointed by Parliament; furnishing returns and statistics of the herring-fisheries of Scotland and the Isle of Man, and aiding in maintaining the fishery convention with France. The functions of the Board extended over the whole coast of Scotland, and in regard to statistics to the Isle of Man, and in respect to the branding of herring over the northern portion of the coast of Northumberland.”