Notes outside the range of the staff are placed on or between ledger lines -- lines the width of the note they need to hold -- added above or below the staff.
Even then printers had an aversion to ledger lines which caused difficulties in setting type, wasting space on the page and causing a messy appearance.
The use of different clefs for different instruments and voices allows each part to be written comfortably on the stave with a minimum of ledger lines.
This transposition applies even when reading the tenor and treble clef, which are used to avoid excessive ledger lines when notating the instrument's upper range.
However, when music is scored for a soprano whistle it will be written an octave lower than it sounds, to spare ledger lines and make it much easier to read.