336 PONDS SHOULD BE DRIED NOT MUDDED. 



" 1. Let the water be run off from pond a completely, 

 and as it empties catch the fish and place them in 

 pond B. 



*' 2. Having let a run completely dry, plant the mud 

 with oats, barley, cabbages, or rye grass. The crops 

 having been in due time reaped, re-fill it in the winter 

 and stock it with fry. 



** 3. Then dry and plant b. At the same time dis- 

 pose of all the larger marketable fish, and put the half 

 and three-parts-grown fish into pond c, which now for 

 the first time is taken into the regular round of cultiva- 

 tion. Thus with three ponds worked upon this system 

 the proprietor will always have a crop of vegetables 

 growing in one pond, yearling fry in another pond, and 

 breeders, with the fish fattening for the market in the 

 third." 



I feel convinced that this system should have a good 

 trial in England, for thus the heavy and expensive work 

 of clearing out or, as it is called, mudding ponds, would 

 be entirely obviated, and a pond might be set to work, 

 first to grow a crop of vegetables and then a crop offish. 

 If ponds are not emptied for some time, fish will not 

 thrive in them, or rather they come to a standstill both 

 in number and size, while the stock altogether deterio- 

 rates. If a pond, however, as I know from experience, 

 be left dry, even without planting, for a year or more, 

 the fish knmed into it will grow and fatten in a most 

 extraordinary manner. The reason, probably, is that 

 the ground is sweetened and the food becomes abun- 

 dant. 



One hundi-ed and sixty-seven years ago, namely in 

 1718, the eleventh year of the reign of Queen Anne, 

 was published another excellent book on fish-ponds, 

 the original edition of which, through the kindness of 



