400 State Board of Aokicui.ture, &o. 



the extreme Northwestern portions of the United States, 

 and the regions adjacent in the British Provinces, has nature 

 so bountifnll}' supplied its waters with vahiable fresh water 

 lish as in the New England States, and the lower Provinces 

 of the Canadian Dominion. The memory of men now liv- 

 ing runs back to the time when our rivers swarmed with 

 that king of all fishes, the Salmon and its kindred varieties, 

 now. unfortunately, almost extinct within our inland waters. So 

 great, formerly, was the quantity of fish in our rivers that 

 they were a regular and reliable food supply for the earliest 

 settlers, and, together with the pursuit of game, constituted 

 their entire reliance until their farms were in a condition to 

 yield an increase. It is related in Thoinpson'' s Vermont^ 

 that " at an early day, in Tinmouth, in this State, a stream 

 that was about twenty feet wide, containing Trout and Suck- 

 ers of the ordinary size and number, had a dam built across 

 it, and which formed a pond containing, by estimation, about 

 one thousand acres. In two or three years fish were multi- 

 plied in this pond to an incredible number. They were 

 taken Ijy the hand at pleasure, and swine caught them with- 

 out difficulty. With a small net, fishermen would take half 

 a bushel at a draught, and repeat their labors with the same 

 success. Carts were loaded with them in as short a time as 

 people could gather them up when thrown upon the banks, 

 and it was customary in the fishing season to sell them for a 

 shilling a bushel. And while they thus increased in num- 

 bers they became more than doul>le their former size. 



This was uncommon, even in those times, but it shows 

 how rapidly fish will increase under the most favorable cir- 

 cumstances. Nature no longer provides circumstances as 



