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VIII. SHOOTING AND FISHING OF SWEDBN.
2. FISHING.
The natural qualifications of Sweden, surrounded as it is to a large
extent by the sea, and with innumerable lakes scattered in its interior,
invite the inhabitants to take a considerable portion of their living from
the waters. It is true that the increasing cultivation of the country
and its industrial development, as well as the great value which its
vast forests now have compared with their former value, have caused
fishing not to be of the same importance nowadays as it once was for the
few and scattered inhabitants of former days. But to this very day fishing
has a considerable value as a source of livelihood. With regard to
the returns of the Swedish fisheries we have as yet only scattered and
very deficient informations. According to an approximate estimation
for the period 1891/95, the annual value should, however, have amounted
to about 9 million kronor, of which 4 million come from the
coast-fisheries, 1-5 from the high-sea fisheries, and 35 million kronor from
the freshwater fisheries (including salmon and eelfishlng). The
herring-fishery was calculated to give 2,750,000 kronor, the smallherring-fishery
1,000,000, lobster and oyster fishery 175,000, the salmon fishing 950,000,
and the eelfishing 600,000 kronor. According to a more recent
estimation by the Fishery Inspector F. Trybom the salt-water fisheries alone
(Coast and high-sea fisheries) yielded in 1902 fully 7 million kronor.
Concerning the import and export of fish, informations are given in
Table 94. — About 40,000 people live exclusively on fishing, and it also
constitutes a more or less considerable by-trade, both for the
coast-population and for the agricultural population in the interior of the country.
The Baltic, which washes the ea3t and south coasts of Sweden, is an inland
sea containing predominatingly cold water with a slight percentage of salt
decreasing from south to north and, in the Gulf of Bothnia as well as in the inner
bays and fiords of the Archipelagoes, being only minimal. The salt-percentage of
the water increases, however, from the Kattegatt northward and is in the Bohus Bay,
the water of which stands in more direct connection with the North Sea, about the
same as in this sea. A natural consequence of the aforesaid fact is that the
number of salt-water fishes is considerably greater than in the Baltic, where they
represent a minority and decrease in number towards the north in relation to
the decreasing salt-percentage of the water. But in the Baltic there is another
remarkable circumstance, namely that along the coast, and especially in the
archipelagoes pure fresh-water forms occur in equally great or greater numbers than
the salt-water species. Thus, of our about 40 kinds of fresh-water fish, no less
than 30 species are also to be found in the Baltic, and part of them are a
source of lucrative income to fishermen. Another circumstance also affecting the
fishing, is that a large portion of our coast is bordered by a fringe of innumerable
larger and smaller islands and rocks forming a so-called »Skftrgård».
A consequence of these circumstances is that the difference between salt-water
and fresh-water fishing is less marked in Sweden than in countries surrounded by
salter seas, and that furthermore, the fishing is chiefly coast-fishing and less open
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