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

by James Glass Bertram

Another fishing industry which has bulked large in the annals of the sea is the whale-fishery. At one time a goodly number of British vessels were fitted out in order to follow this dangerous pursuit in the Arctic Seas, and many a thrilling narrative has been founded on the adventures of enterprising whalers. This fishery has fallen off very much of late years, both as regards the pursuit of the right or the Greenland whale, and also in the case of the sperm whale, the capture of which used to be an “enterprise of great pith and moment” in America, the head-quarters of the fishery being situated at New Bedford. It is a good thing that the invention of gas has superseded in a great measure our dependence on the whale; and the discovery of other lubricants, vegetable and mineral, suitable for machinery, has rendered us altogether independent of the Leviathan of the deep. Although this particular fishing industry may almost be said to be extinct, it was at one time of considerable importance, at least to Scottish commerce.

To come down to the present time, it is pleasant to think that the seas of Britain are crowded with many thousand boats, all gleaning wealth from the bosom of the waters. As one particular branch of sea industry becomes exhausted for the season another one begins. In spring we have our white fisheries; in summer we have our mackerel; in autumn we have the great herring-fishery; then in winter we deal in pilchards and sprats and oysters; and all the year round we trawl for flat fish or set pots for lobsters, or do some other work of the fishing—in fact, we are continually day by day despoiling the waters of their food treasures. When we exhaust the inshore fisheries we proceed straightway to the deep waters. Hale and strong fishermen sail hundreds of miles to the white-fishing grounds, whilst old men potter about the shore, setting nets with which to catch crabs, or ploughing the sand for prawns. At different places we can note the specialities of the British fisheries. In Caithness-shire we can follow the greatest herring-fleet in the world; at Cornwall, again, we can view the pilchard-fishery; at Barking we can see the cod-fleet; at Hull there is a wealth of trawlers; at Whitstable we can make acquaintance with the oyster-dredgers; and at the quaint fishing-ports on the Moray Firth, to be afterwards described, we can witness the manufacture of “Finnan haddies,” as at Yarmouth we can take part in the making of bloaters; and all round our coasts we can see women and children industriously gathering shell-fish for bait, or performing other functions connected with the industry of the sea—repairing nets, baiting the lines, or hawking the fish, for the fisherwomen are true helpmates to their husbands. At certain seasons everything that can float in the water is called into requisition—little cobbles, gigantic yawls, trig schooners, are all required to aid in the gathering of the sea harvest. Thousands of people are employed in this great industry; betokening that a vast population have chosen to seek bread on the bosom of the great deep.

Crossing the Channel we can see that the general sea fisheries of France are also being prosecuted with great vigour, and at those places which have railways to bear away the produce with considerable profit. I am in possession of notes and statistics pertaining to a large portion of the French seabord, giving plentiful details of the modern fishing industry of that country; and the fisheries of France are greatly noticed just now, in the hope of their forming a splendid nursery for seamen, the improvement of the navy being at present one of the dominant objects of the Emperor of the French. The Marine Department, having this object in view, have sagaciously broken through all the old protective laws incidental to the fisheries, and now allow the fishermen to carry on their trade very much as they please; trawling has therefore become pretty general at all those ports which maintain railway communication with the interior: thus at Dunkerque there are 60 trawlers; at Boulogne, 100; at Tourville, 109; at Treport, 53; at Calais, 84; with lesser numbers at smaller ports, most of them being engaged in supplying the wants of Paris with deep-sea fish; and as the coasts are provided with excellent harbours of refuge, the trawlers follow their avocations with regularity and success.

The modes of sea-fishing are so much alike in every country that it is unnecessary for us to do more than just mention that the French method of trawling is very similar to our own, about which I will by and by have something to say. But there are details of fishing industry connected with that pursuit on the French coasts that we are not familiar with in Britain. The neighbouring peasantry, for instance, come to the seaside and fish with nets which are called bas parc; and these are spread out before the tide is full in order to retain all the fish which are brought within their meshes. The children of these land-fishers also work, although with smaller nets, at these foreshore fisheries, while the wives poke about the sand for shrimps and the smaller crustacea. These people thus not only ensure a supply of food for themselves during winter, but also contrive during summer to take as much fish as brings them in a little store of money.

The perpetual industry carried on by the coast people on the French foreshores is quite a sight, although it is a fish commerce of a humble and primitive kind. Even the little children contrive to make money by building fish-ponds, or erecting trenches, in which to gather salt, or in some other little industry incidental to sea-shore life. One occasionally encounters some abject creature groping about the rocks to obtain the wherewithal to sustain life. To these people all is fish that comes to hand; no creature, however slimy, that creeps about is allowed to escape, so long as it can be disguised by cookery into any kind of food for human beings. Some of the people have old rickety boats patched up with still older pieces of wood or leather, sails mended here and there, till it is difficult to distinguish the original portion from those that have been added to it; nets torn and darned till they are scarce able to hold a fish; and yet that boat and that crippled machinery are the stock in trade of perhaps two or three generations of a family, and the concern may have been founded half a century ago by the grandfather, who now sees around him a legion of hungry gamins that it would take a fleet of boats to keep in food and raiment. The moment the tide flows back, the foreshore is at once overrun with an army of hungry people, who are eager to clutch whatever fishy debris the receding water may have left; the little pools are eagerly, nay hungrily, explored, and their contents grabbed with an anxiety that pertains only to poverty. At some places of the coast, however, a happier life is dawning on the people—the discovery of pisciculture has led to a traffic in oysters that, as I will by and by show, is surprising; indeed a new life has in consequence dawned on some districts, and where at one time there was poverty and its attendant squalor, there is now wealth and its handmaid prosperity.

On some parts of the French coasts, and it is proper to mention this, the fishery is not of importance, although the fish are plentiful enough. At Cancale, for instance, the fishermen have imposed on themselves the restriction of only fishing twice a week. In Brittany, at some of the fishing places, the people seem very poor and miserable, and their boats look to be almost valueless, reminding one of the state of matters at Fittie in the outskirts of Aberdeen. At the isle of Groix, however, there is to be found a tolerably well-off maritime and fishing community; at this place, where the men take to the sea at an early age, there are about one hundred and thirty fishing boats of from twenty to thirty tons each, of which the people—i.e. the practical fishermen—are themselves the owners. At the Sands of Olonne there is a most extensive sardine-fishery—the capture of sprats, young herrings, and young pilchards, for curing as sardines, yielding a considerable share of wealth, as a large number of boats follow this branch of the business all the year round. There are not less than 13,000 boats on the coast of Brittany devoted to the sardine trade, and when it is considered that, according to Mitchell, a sum of £80,000 is annually expended on cod and mackerel roe for bait in this fishery, my readers will see that the total value of the French fisheries must be very considerable. Experiments in artificial breeding are now being made both with the white fish and the crustaceans, and sanguine hopes are entertained of having in a short time a plentiful supply of all kinds of shell and white fish, and as regards those parts of the French coast which are at present destitute of the power of conveyance, the apparition of a few locomotives will no doubt work wonders in instigating a hearty fishing enterprise.

In fact the industry of the French as regards the fisheries has become of late years quite wonderful, and there is evidently more in their eager pursuit of sea wealth than all at once meets the eye. No finer naval men need be wished for any country than those that are to be found in the French fishing luggers, and there can be no doubt but that they are being trained with a view to the more perfect manning of the French navy. At any rate the French people (? government) have discovered the art of growing sailors, and doubtless they will make the most of it, being able apparently to grow them at a greatly cheaper rate than we can do. As regards the French fisheries in the North Sea, I may mention that the flotilla engaged in 1863, in that particular mine of industry, consisted of 285 ships, measuring 22,000 tons, and manned by nearly 4000 seamen—the whole, both ships and men, being an increase over those of the preceding year. This fleet left the shores of France between the 20th of March and the 12th of April, and shortly after these dates arrived at Iceland. A very large number of codfish were taken, and the report to the Minister of Marine says that the ships of war on the station afforded help to eighty-three of the vessels, and that the health of the crews was remarkably good during the whole season, eighteen vessels only requiring the aid of the surgeon, and these vessels had only two invalids each. This is instructive as showing the care that is taken in the selection of healthy crews, and of the pains of their Government to keep them healthy, and it must be admitted that, so far as physique is concerned, the French seamen are fine-looking fellows.

The commercial system established in France for bringing the produce of the sea into the market is of a highly-elaborate and intricate character. The direct consequence of this system is, that the price of fish goes on increasing from its first removal from the shore until it reaches the market. This fact cannot be better illustrated than by tracing the fish from the moment they are landed on the quay by the fishermen through various intermediate transactions until they reach the hands of the fishmonger of Paris. The first agent into whose hands they come is the ecoreur. The ecoreur is usually a qualified man appointed by the owners of the vessels, the municipality, or by an association termed the Société d’Ecorage. He performs the functions of a wholesale agent between the fisherman and the public. He is ready to take the fish out of the fisherman’s hands as soon as they are landed. He buys the fish from the fisherman, and pays him at once, deducting a percentage for his own services. This percentage is sometimes 5, 4, or even as low as 3½ per cent. He undertakes the whole risk of selling the fish, and suffers any loss that may be incurred by bad debts or bad sale, for which he can make no claim whatever upon the owner of the boat. The system of ecorage is universally adopted, as the fisherman prefers ready money with a deduction of 5 per cent rather than trouble himself with any repayment or run the risk of bad debts. Passing from the ecoreur we come to the mareyeur—that is, the merchant who buys the fish from the wholesale agent. He provides baskets to hold the fish, packs them, and despatches them by railway. He pays the carriage, the town-dues or duties, and the fees to the market-crier. Should the fish not keep, and arrive in Paris in bad condition, and be complained of by the police, he sustains the loss. As regards the transport arrangements, the fish are usually forwarded by the fast trains, and the rates are invariable, whatever may be the quality of the fish. Thus, turbot and salmon are carried at the same rate as monkfish, oysters, and crabs. On the northern lines the rate is 37 cents per ton per kilometre; upon the Dieppe and Nantes lines, 25 or 26 cents; which gives 85 or 96 francs as the carriage of a ton of fish despatched from the principal ports of the north—such as St. Valery-sur-Somme, Boulogne, Calais, and Dunkerque—and 130 francs per ton on fish despatched from Nantes.

The fish, on their arrival in Paris, are subjected to a duty. For the collection of this duty the fish are divided into two classes—viz., fine fresh fish and ordinary fresh fish. The fine fish—which class includes salmon, trout, turbot, sturgeon, tunny, brill, shad, mullet, roach, sole, lobster, shrimp, and oyster—pay a duty of 10 per cent of the market value. The duty upon the common fresh fish is 5 per cent. This duty is paid after the sale, and is then of course duly entered in the official register.

All the fish sent to Paris is sold through the agency of auctioneers (facteurs à la criee) appointed by the town, who receive a commission of 2 or 3 per cent. The auctioneer either sells to the fishmonger or to the consumer.