This fishery is in every respect of the highest importance to the county of Cornwall, affording employment to at least twelve thousand persons,[75] whilst the capital engaged cannot be fairly estimated at less than three hundred and fifty, or four hundred thousand pounds.
The broken and refuse fish are sold at about 10d per bushel, for manure, and are used throughout the county with excellent effects, especially for raising all green crops; they are usually mixed with sand, or soil, and sometimes with sea weed, to prevent them from raising too luxuriant a crop, arising from a too rapid decomposition; thus employed their effects are very permanent, and there is a popular belief that a single pilchard will fertilize a foot square of land for several years; and certain it is, that after the apparent exhaustion of this manure, its powers may be again excited by ploughing in a small proportion of quick lime, which will produce a still further decomposition of the animal matter, and develope a fresh succession of those elements which are essential to the growth of vegetable substances.
The Herring fishery is also carried on to a great extent at Saint Ives; this fish appears after the pilchard has quitted the shores, and is much smaller than that which is caught on the northern coasts of Britain; which corroborates the general opinion, that the farther it migrates to the south, the more it decreases in size. It is also worthy of remark that, notwithstanding the great abundance of this fish in the Bristol Channel, it very seldom passes the Land's End, and is consequently rarely caught in the Mount's Bay, or on the southern shores of Cornwall.
But let us return from this digression, and proceed with our excursion.—
Quitting Saint Ives by the eastern road, we are conducted along an elevated cliff, which affords a complete command of every object in the bay; in our route we pass Tregenna Castle, the seat of Samuel Stephens, Esq. and on the summit of a lofty hill, about a mile from this mansion, stands a pyramid, which immediately attracts the notice of the traveller, as well on account of the singular wildness of its situation, as the complete absence of every shrub, or rural ornament, with which such objects are usually associated. It was erected by the late eccentric John Knill, Esq., a bencher of Gray's Inn, and some time collector of the Port of Saint Ives, it having been intended as a Mausoleum for the reception of his remains, although he afterwards revoked this intention, and ordered his body to be given to an anatomist in London, for dissection. On one side of this pyramid is inscribed, "Johannes Knill," on another, "Resurgam," and on a third, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." He directed in his will, that at the end of every five years, a Matron and ten girls, dressed in white, should walk in procession, with music, from the market house at Saint Ives, to this pyramid, around which they should dance, singing the hundredth Psalm!
——"Pueri circum innuptæque puellæ
Sacra canunt."
For the purpose of keeping up this custom, he bequeathed some freehold lands, which are vested in the officiating minister, the mayor, and the collector of the port of Saint Ives, who are allowed Ten Pounds for a dinner. The first celebration of these Quinquennial rites excited, as may easily be supposed, very considerable interest throughout the western parts of the county.
"No tongue was mute, nor foot was still,
But One and All[76] were on the hill,
In chorus round the tomb of Knill."