1828.] Salmtyi Fisheries of Great Britain?. 233 



the prohibitions of the very same act, and from the same river Shannon, 

 the salmon-smolts, to the scandalous and wanton destruction of the 

 breed, were, in the face of open day, sold for feeding pigs. 



Driven thus from Ireland, as before they had been from Scotland, 

 England alone was left for the enterprise of the Solway fishers ; and to 

 England accordingly they came. They established their nets in the 

 British Channel, and at other places, and always with the same distin- 

 guished success; but they were, and are still, very far from being 

 generally employed, though no attempt has hitherto been made to throw 

 legal obstructions in their way. Thus the stake-net, which is calculated 

 to produce the effect of fifty common nets, is legal in one part of the 

 country, and illegal in two. The proprietors of the upper fisheries are, 

 however, clamorous about their rights ; though the fact is and quite 

 indisputable too that in no one river, where the stake-net has been 

 erected at the mouth of it, have the upper fisheries taken fewer than 

 before. But the final result, no doubt, is, that more fish being thrown 

 into competition, they get inferior prices for the same produce. But are 

 the interests of the community to be sacrificed to the petty concerns and 

 the unjust privileges of individuals ? Is the bounty of Nature to be 

 thus cribbed and cabined ? Are her gifts to float around us untouched ? 

 and, because the old proprietor cannot enlarge the powers of his 

 machinery, are those to be prohibited who can in places, too, where he 

 cannot reach the spoil, and where, moreover, if he could, he can have 

 no rights ? The question is not, and ought not, to be discussed as a 

 local, but as a national one. It is not the privileges of proprietors, but 

 the rights of the community that are concerned. If the statements of the 

 witnesses are to be relied upon and nothing occurs to invalidate them 

 salmon, instead of being a costly luxury, which the rich only can enjoy, 

 might become a common and abundant article of food, accessible to the 

 poorest of the people. The possible multiplication is such as to satisfy 

 all our home demands, and become moreover an article of foreign expor- 

 tation. So great, so important, so immeasurably beyond the common 

 notions entertained on the subject, are the capabilities of the salmon 

 fishery, by the means of stake-nets, that we will venture to extend our, 

 remarks, and state, more particularly and distinctly, the advantages of 

 the stake-nets, and reply to the objections that have from time to time 

 been urged agairist them. 



The most striking advantage of the stake-net is, that by it salmon can 

 b'e taken in places where they can be taken by no other means. The 

 common nets are nearly useless in the open sea, or in estuaries, or on the 

 shores, where the depth of the water varies, the bottom is full of irre- 

 gularities, and the portion which the net embraces insignificant. The 

 stake-net is fixed at right angles with the set of the tide, extending from 

 high-water to low-water mark, rising from the ground to the full height 

 of the tide, and thus receives all that the tide carries, ebbing or flowing, 

 which are left in the enclosures of the nets on the bare sands. In the old 

 fishing stations, in the lower parts of the rivers, fish are caught by the 

 stake-net in greater abundance than before. The proof may be found in 

 the Tay, wnere the annual produce by the ordinary means was 30,000, 

 but by the stake-nets was swelled up to 60,000, and might have been 

 still farther augmented. In that river, too, after the stake-nets were put 

 down by the decision of the courts, the fisheries were entirely abandoned, 

 because the produce of the coble-net would not even pay expenses. The jijjjj, 



M.M. New Series VOL. V. No. 27. 2 H 



