Chapter VII: The Fisheries

What the cider-apple crop is to Normandy, that the fisheries are to Brittany, and more, for the fisheries turn over more money by far than the cider of Normandy, which is grown purely for home consumption. The Breton young person of the male sex takes to the sea in the little pilchard-boats, the three-masters of the deep-sea fishery, or the whalers, for the purpose of earning his livelihood, and also to secure a prescribed term of exemption from military or naval service. With such an object, it is no wonder that the industry employs so many hands, and has become so important and considerable in its returns. Of course the geographical position of the country has more than a little to do with this, and also the stony soil of the country-side, suggesting the harvest of the sea as a more ample crop.

In Brittany, the sea nourishes the land, though perhaps but meagrely.

From the mouth of the Loire, around Finistère to Lannion, thousands upon thousands of the inhabitants live by the harvest of the sea, whereas, if it were not for this, they might be forced to emigrate, or to hie themselves to the large towns, there to herd in unsanitary quarters, which is worse.

The pilchard fishery is practically at its best directly off the Quiberon peninsula, opposite Lorient and Concarneau. It is important also just offshore from Audierne, Douarnenez, and Camaret.

It is well to recall just what the sardine really is, inasmuch as we mostly buy any “little fishes boiled in oil,” which a pushful grocer may thrust upon us. The “corporal’s stripe,” or the “cavalry corporal,” as the sardine is known in France, is quite a different species from the “armed policeman,” or common sea-garden herring. The Atlantic, the North Sea, the Baltic, and some parts of the Mediterranean are its home. It winters between 50 degrees and 60 degrees north latitude, in a zone where the temperature is constant, but from March to October it emigrates toward the north. Sometimes the future sardines are known as pilchards; on the coasts of Normandy and Picardy as _hareng de Bergues_; as sardines in Brittany; as _royan_ in Charente; and as _sarda_ and _sardinyola_ in the Pyrénées Orientales.

The best and most common method of preserving the sardine is by slightly heating the oil before placing it with the fish in those little tin boxes known the world over; then the boxes are soldered and put into a double boiler and boiled for the better part of an hour, when the exceedingly simple process is finished. So simple is it, and so readily accomplished without a great capital investment, that the wonder is that imitations of the “real Brittany sardines” are not more successful elsewhere. Up to this time, however, nothing rivals the Breton product.

Each year, at the feast of St. Jean, the barques set out from the various ports, all richly decorated, and often sped on their way by a religious ceremony, at which a priest officiates and gives his blessing.

The profits vary considerably one year from another, as may be supposed. The catch is by no means constant. Its ordinary receipts approximate twelve million francs, and, when it drops below this figure, distress is likely to ensue, particularly if a hard winter falls upon Brittany, which in truth it seldom does.

The little fish return each year, their feeding-ground scarcely varying thirty miles in any direction. Thus, in season, the boats with their red sails and blue and brown nets put off for the same spots where they took their catches last year, only to find that the habits of the sardines have not in the least changed. Five or six men to a boat is the average crew, and, if the wind be contrary, their speed is much the same by means of oars. Once arrived on the ground, the skipper of the boat throws overboard at intervals some handfuls of _rogue_ as a bait; this is a paste composed of the roe of the cod, and the only drawback is that its cost is great. It comes mostly from Norway, and, after passing through many intermediate hands, finally reaches the Breton fisherman, who pays from sixty to seventy francs per hundred kilos. When the price rises above this figure, the ingenious skipper fabricates a substitute, a mixture of the real article and a local vegetable product known as _farine d’arachides_. Its results are not so good as those from the real article, and the local fishermen have a saying which is doubtless so true as to have become a proverb: “One must bait with fish to catch a fish.” Moreover, the fish caught by this means do not rank as a first quality product in the markets of the Breton fishing ports, owing to the after-effects on the fish, which shall be undefined here. It may be well to recall the fact, however, and, if you get a sardine which is not what you think it ought to be, and is too much like a bad oyster, you may depend upon it that it was caught with _farine d’arachides_.

The Breton custom is to fish with buoyed nets, disdaining the drag-net, though occasionally the latter is used.

The buoyed nets merely scoop the surface of the water, but the drag-nets are sunk to a depth of from forty to fifty metres. When the skipper estimates that the net is full, or, at least, that he shall have a haul worthy of his trouble, all hands, singing as all sailor-folk do, pull the net inboard, and, with a clever turn, empty it of its freight of silver-scaled fish, which are forthwith scooped up and placed in great baskets. On the return to port, the fishermen still in harbour, the factory hands, and all the inhabitants who are not otherwise employed, even though they ought to be, to say nothing of curious peasant-folk from the inland towns, and always a generous sprinkling of tourists, and the inevitable American artist, are in waiting, curious as to the luck.

Here the dealers come and bargain for the catch. Thirty to thirty-five francs a thousand is usually the market price, and the choicest fish naturally sell first. Speculation comes in now and then, and a scare as to the prospect of the catch being too abundant is as common and as disastrous as the fear that it may not be large enough. Sometimes the price will fall as low as a franc and a half, and then come “trials without number for the sailors,” as an old fisherman told the writer. Certainly, if thirty francs a thousand be only a paying wage, a franc and a half must mean about the same as utter failure to the crew, who generally work the boat on shares.

The pilchard fishers have not forgotten the crisis of 1903, to combat the recurrence of which it was proposed to establish special schools for fishermen apprentices, and to forbid the use of the drag-net, and they are seeking a rearrangement of conditions whereby the returns may be more equally distributed among the workers than now. At the present time the owner--who fits out the boat--claims a third, and the skipper a third, the hands dividing the other third. According to this arrangement, the novice or apprentice receives an infinitesimal share.

As a Frenchman, a Breton of Quimper who was not in the sardine business, said to us: “_Ces pauvres diables! Ils mériteraient mieux._” All of which is true, so let all well-wishers, who are fond of the “little fishes boiled in oil” at their picnic dinners, give a thought now and again to the Breton fisherman.

Besides the sardine fisheries, there is a considerable traffic from such ports as Tréguier, St. Malo, and Morlaix in the deep-sea fishery, and elsewhere in the mackerel and herring fishery in Icelandic waters and the North Sea, and these give a prosperity that would otherwise be wanting.

Statistics are dry reading, and so they are not given here, but there are some curious things with regard to the laws regulating the offshore and deep-sea fisheries of France, just as there are with respect to the line fishing, by which method one can legally take fish only if he actually hold his rod or line in his hand: he may not lay it on the ground beside him and doze until an unusually frisky gudgeon wakes him up.

On all of the French fishing-craft, which sail to the Banks or to Iceland for cod, French salt must be used, and all masters of fishing-craft must keep a supplementary log or diary relating to the takings of fish alone.

In deep-sea fishing the law prescribes that a vessel which is fitted out for the fishing-banks must remain on the ground a certain length of time. This is to preclude the possibility of a decreasing catch, it is to be presumed, as many a fisherman has been known, before now, to give up the labour with holds half-filled simply because he had come upon a meagre feeding-ground. It seems a wise precaution, and is another of those parental acts which the French government is always undertaking on behalf of its children. There is still the whalebone catch to reckon with, for the French government specializes this industry, and offers a bonus of seventy francs a ton displacement on leaving port for all French equipments, and fifty francs per ton displacement upon returning after the term prescribed.