8o 



equally necessary for both industries, there could arise 

 no disagreement, while in the event of fish-culture being- 

 carried on concurrently with salt making, the work of 

 the fish-tenders being directed to the maintenance of the 

 water and the channel in a clean and wholesome condi- 

 tion, the water supply for the pans would, if anything, 

 be benefited. It is a matter of common knowledge that 

 the presence of fish in a pond has a direct influence for 

 good, the water undergoing distinct purification through 

 the removal of matter that would otherwise putrify and 

 tend to contaminate it. 



However no decision need be come to on this 

 question for some time and by then we shall be in 

 possession of concrete data, for there exist some salt 

 factories where the feeder channel although present, is 

 in disuse, water for the pans being obtained in pits by 

 percolation. Here then are no possible difficulties in 

 the way of instituting a working experiment and if that 

 should prove successful and it be found, as I am sure it 

 will, that such operations in no way interfere with the 

 regular routine of the factory and actually have a bene- 

 ficial effect through rendering the water supply cleaner 

 and more wholesome, then the Madras Government may 

 utilize the channels of many of its salt factories for a 

 remunerative secondary industry at almost no extra cost, 

 seeing that nearly all the machinery for such work is 

 already in existence in the shape of sluices, channels, 

 and protective embankments. 



(e) Estuarine and deltaic marshes. 



On both coasts there are hundreds of square miles 

 of low-lying ground bordering the lower reaches of our 

 rivers which are overflowed whenever the adjoining 

 stream comes down in flood or when high spring tides 

 invade the estuary. It has been from land of this nature 

 that salt pans have been formed and in the same way it 

 would be a matter of little difficulty to make fish ponds 

 of whatever area might be required. 



Even as it is the marshy land adjoining many streams 

 on the Malabar coast is the scene of a crude and undeve- 

 loped attempt at fish rearing, an attempt containing the 

 germ of true fish-farming. The land in question is very 

 low and is cultivated in plots at the time of the rains by 



