J. PISCICULTURE AND THE FISHERIES. 417 



do with the question. They furthermore state that the Dutch 

 authorities are not, indeed, averse to a restriction, and are 

 willing to meet the Verein on reasonable grounds, especially 

 because they contend that, should the concession be mutual, 

 a restriction of the fisheries in the upper waters would tend 

 to increase the stock offish toward the mouth of the river. 



.While admitting, however, that the hatching of salmon in 

 the upper Rhine will increase the stock of fish in the river 

 generally, they maintain that it is not certain that all the 

 salmon passing up the Rhine have been born in its upper wa- 

 ters, and that quite possibly they may come from Norway, 

 England, or Scotland ; and the fact that millions of salmon 

 e<rS have been taken from the Rhine for the establishment at 

 Hiiningen, and that millions of young salmon have been sold 

 at Strasburg, is to be considered as evidence that, if the hy- 

 pothesis of the Germans be true, they themselves have con- 

 tributed more largely to the decrease of this fish than the 

 Dutch. 



The general reasoning in this document must be consid- 

 ered by dispassionate fish-culturists as very specious, and an 

 impartial jury would probably decide against the Dutch side 

 of the question. There can be no doubt but that the propa- 

 gation of salmon in the upper waters must have had a very 

 important bearing upon the supply, and that but for this, with 

 the amount of fishing in that river, they would have been re- 

 duced to a very small number. Few specialists will admit 

 the suggestion of the Dutch society that the river is in any 

 degree stocked from England or Norway, or other than from 

 fish that had been born in the upper beds. 



This difficulty, it will be observed, is very similar to that 

 which has arisen on the Connecticut River in regard to stock- 

 ing that stream with shad and salmon, the efforts of Massa- 

 chusetts having been, in a measure, rendered nugatory by 

 the absence of protection in Connecticut. It is hoped, how- 

 ever, that under the new laws of this latter state, which went 

 into operation on the 1st of January last,Vermont and Mas- 

 sachusetts will be encouraged to take the steps necessary to 

 place in that river the proper supply of young fish of differ- 

 ent species, and that the entire length of the Connecticut may 

 have a proper share of the harvest. Circular of Holland 

 Fish Society. 



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