THE FISHERY INTERESTS OF AUSTRIA. 575 



the government we must likewise look for those general, far-reaching, 

 and, therefore, successful measures which the fishing interests require 

 from time to time even where there is a good fishery-law. Such meas- 

 ures likewise demand a thorough knowledge of the principles on which 

 the fishery-laws are based. 



The sad experiences of the Austrian fisheries, which are related in 

 every one of the reports of competent men from all the provinces of 

 the Austrian empire, and which could not be passed over silently in this 

 report, will increase conviction that the former neglect and the conse- 

 quent exhaustion of the rivers and lakes cannot go on without this in- 

 dispensable harvest of the waters dwindling down to utter insignificance, 

 and the supplies of this wholesome and cheap food diminishing. It 

 must become a question of vital interest to the whole population to put 

 an end to the exhaustion of the waters by cultivating them. 



B— THE FISHERIES. 

 4. — THE FORMER CONDITION OF THE AUSTRIAN FISHERIES. 



In olden times, the waters of Austria were rich in fish of every kind, 

 supplying the population with a considerable quantity of cheap and 

 wholesome food, and the fishers with a fruitful source of income. On 

 all the more important waters, there were well organized fishing-associa- 

 tions, guilds of fishermen and traders ; in all the larger towns, there were 

 fish-markets, the names of which are alone left in many cases. Old ac- 

 count-books giving the quantities of fish used and sold, market-statistics 

 and service-lists of the number of fish to be paid to landed proprietors, 

 convents, cities, and markets, by their dependents, show in figures the 

 immense wealth of fish in the olden times ; not to mention the many 

 almost legendary reports of enormous hauls of fish, of the complaints 

 of servants that they were nauseated by the too frequent appearance on 

 the table of salmon and trout, which are found in the often quoted regu- 

 lations and service-compacts of many cities on rivers flowing into the 

 Baltic and the North Sea, as well as on the Danube, in Salzburg, Bohe- 

 mia, and in other provinces of Austria. As late as the first decades of 

 our century, the wealth of fish in the several provinces of Austria was 

 very considerable. Some rivers of Moravia, as late as thirty years ago, 

 furnished so many trout that these fish formed the common food of the 

 laborers, a good sized tubful being sold for about 5 cents. 



Even during the period 1S50-'5S, trout were so numerous in the 

 rivers and rivulets of the Bohmer Wald that an observer counted 

 one trout to every fathom, the breadth of the water being 4 feet and 

 its depth 1 foot, (Woldrich, Ueber die Fische und ihr Leben in den 

 Waldbiichen des Centralstockes des Bohmerwaldes, 1858,) while the 

 same observer, in 1870, found the same streams almost without any 

 fish whatever, on account of fishing during the spawning season. 



