158 MADRAS FISHERIES BULLETIN VOL. XI, 



them, and with knowledge and some care carp can be grown of 

 marketable size in a few months, with the certainty that whereas a 

 cereal crop is almost useless and unproductive if a severe drought 

 happens, the fish crop will be of material value at any stage, while 

 its in-gathering is even facilitated by the dryage of ponds. The 

 public waters of this class are now engaging attention in view to 

 their better utilization, but there are many which should be dealt 

 with by village bodies or by private effort, such as the village 

 irrigation tanks, village ponds, irrigation wells, and even paddy 

 fields. There are more than 25,000 irrigation tanks in the Presi- 

 dency, many of great size and some of almost permanent character. 

 The majority have water for a period sufficient to raise a paddy 

 crop and, being mainly fed by surface streams from the cultivated 

 fields, are more or less manured and are known to be full of fish 

 food. The village ponds in many districts are of considerable 

 number, size, and permanence. Half a dozen, ranging from I to 3 

 or 4 acres, were noticed on a short road journey in a district of 

 the Northern Circars almost full of water at the end of last February, 

 and since they adjoin the village-site and cattle stand and are the 

 drinking and bathing sources for cattle, they are full of fish food 

 and literally swarm with small life. In these cases fish would not 

 only grow with rapidity but would greatly improve the character 

 of the water and vastly minimize the growth of mosquitoes. 



The permanence of such ponds would be greatly increased by a 

 small expenditure of village hot-weather labour, at present un- 

 employed, in deepening the ponds by afoot or so annually for three 

 or four years, the rich mud, full of vegetable and animal debris, 

 being utilized, as in Germany, for the surrounding fields. The same 

 method is equally applicable to irrigation tanks all of which are 

 heavily silted with washings from the arable area of their catch- 

 ment basins, further enriched by the exuviae of tank life. In both 

 cases the double benefit is obtained of increasing the tank capacity 

 and of returning to the fields the loamy and humic matters which 

 have been washed out of them. Irrigation wells aggregate a large 

 area of permanent or semi-permanent water and might be largely 

 utilized for household use. The paddy fields of this Presidency 

 are of vast area, and in many cases contain a good supply of water 

 for many months together. These waters are rich with food, and 

 in Japan the practice of stocking them with carpling is common, 

 the carp being hatched for the purpose in April, transferred in June 

 when I inch or 2 inches long to the fields — often many miles distant 



