The Value And Importance Of The Scottish Fisheries

Excerpt from The Value and Importance of the Scottish Fisheries: Comprehending Fully Every Circumstance Connected With Their Present Position In venturing before the British public with a work of the kind, it is the wish of the Author that he had possessed greater talent, the interest and importance of the subject to be treated being of the highest order. From its national bearing, there is solid ground for claim to public attention. The work has for its object the reanimating an interest in a most valuable branch of our commercial wealth. Our fisheries are in close alliance with the comforts and enjoyments of thousands of our fellow countrymen. They have an intimate connexion with general industry. It is abundantly obvious that the riches which through them could be created might be immense - distributed amongst the various classes of the whole community. There is no other source, indeed, which flows so directly home to the welfare of our northern population. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This book was first published in 1967. This volume contains a number of essays looking at Scottish business history, its sources and archives. Section two explores domestic and enterprise organsation with examples of lead-mining, joint stock and he law, the Glasglow savings bank and the east coast herring fishing. Section three expands Scottish Enterprise overseas from 1707 to the nineteeth century.

An ancient and environmentally friendly method of catching salmon, by spotting them in the water and taking them with ‘net and coble’, unique to the Cromarty Firth, was recently banned by the Scottish government. The men who knew this way of fishing are no longer young, and there is every risk of their centuries-old techniques dying with them. So it is fortunate that a practitioner of the craft for over fifty years has drawn on his knowledge and experience to paint a rich picture of this fishing, the firthland itself and the history of salmon netting. He describes great fishing days, the life of the fishing bothy and the characters who inhabited it. He takes the reader through the fish’s life cycle and discusses declining catches and the threats to the wild salmon’s future. His and his fellow netsmen’s respect for this legendary fish and their love of the firth and its wildlife shine through. With maps, many photographs and a helpful glossary, the story is enhanced by recipes, anecdote and character sketches, also five poems on fishing, the work of a variety of hands. While anglers and conservationists will be drawn to this unique account, there is much to interest the general reader, who will discover a vanished world, grand Highland characters and the delights of fishing in a beautiful setting.