FISHERIES are localities frequented at certain seasons by great numbers of fish, where they are taken upon a large scale. Of the British fisheries, some are carried on in rivers or their estuaries, and others in the bays or along the coasts. Our principal cod fishery is on the banks of Newfoundland : and for whales our ships frequent the shores of Greenland, Davis's Straits, and the South Seas. Of late, whale fisheries have also been carried on nearthe shores of Australia, New Zealand, and the Cape of Good. Hope.
In the reign of Queen Elizabeth and after wards, various associations were formed and orders in council issued, having for object the encouragement of British fisheries ; but the trade did not flourish under these protections. Every attempt to encourage the fisheries by means of bounties failed, and tho impolicy of granting these bounties was at length seen and acknowledged. In 1821 the tonnage bounty of 60s. per ton on fishing vessels was repealed; the bounty of 4s. per barrel, which was paid up to the 5th of April, 1826, was thereafter reduced ls. per barrel each suc ceeding year ; so that, in April 1830, the bounty ceased altogether. This alteration of the system was not productive of any serious evil to the herring fishery.
In 1849 the white herrings cured in Great Britain amounted to 770,698 barrels ; the number branded by the commissioners was 213,286 barrels ; and the number exported 340,256 barrels. Including those cured and those sold for immediate consumption, the number was 1,151,979 barrels. In the cod and ling department, there were 98,003 cwt. cured dried, and 6,580 barrels cured in pickle. In that year there were 14,962 boats and 59,792 fishermen under the control of the commissioners.
The removal of the bounty has been attended with an improvement in the condition of the fishermen generally, and in Scotland the fishermen have been able, from the fair profits of their business, to replace the small boats they formerly used by new boats of larger dimensions, and to provide themselves with fishing materials of superior value.
The facilities of communication with popu lous inland districts have greatly extended the market for fish, and the rapid means of transport by railways enables the inhabitants of Birmingham and London to consume cod and other fish caught in the Atlantic by the fishermen of Galway and Donegal. The fishermen who supply the London market, instead of returning to Gravesend or other ports of the Thames and Medway, put their cargoes, already packed in hampers, on board the steam-boats which pass along the whole eastern coast as far north as Aberdeen : or they sometimes make for Hull or some other port in the neighbourhood of the fishing ground, and there land their cargoes, which are conveyed rapidly inland per railway. Fast sailing cutters are sometimes employed to take provisions to the boats on the fishing ground, and to bring back the fish taken by each.
One branch of fishing wholly different in its object from all other branches is the Stow-Boat Fishery. This fishery prevails principally upon the Kentish, Norfolk, and Essex coasts ; and the object is the catching of sprats as manure for the land, for which there is a constant demand.. This branch of fishing gives employment on the Kentish coast alone to from 400 to 500 boats.
Vessels and boats employed in fishing are licensed by the Commissioners of Customs ; and they are required to be painted or tarred entirely black, except the name and place to which such vessel or boat belongs. The licenses thus granted specify the limits be yond which fishing vessels must not be em ployed: this distance is usually four leagues from the English coast.
The Pilchard Fishery, which is carried on upon parts of the Devon and Cornish coasts, employs about 1000 boats, 3500 men at sea, and about 5000 men and women on shore. As soon as caught the pilchards arc salted or pickled and exported to foreign markets, chiefly to the Mediterranean : the average exports amounts to 30,000 hogsheads per year.