38 The Atlantic Salmon 



a dam at Augusta. The Penobscot, which could 

 easily supply hundreds of thousands of dollars' 

 worth of salmon at a nominal cost if the very 

 reasonable and necessary existing laws were 

 enforced, is fast going down under the illegal 

 fishing and the pollution of its water by the 

 poisonous chemicals thrown in it from the vari- 

 ous manufacturing establishments near its mouth. 

 The St. Croix, owing to its being partly in 

 Canada, where the laws are not so badly en- 

 forced as with us, though quite badly enough, 

 has done rather better, but is gradually growing 

 worse. The Connecticut, which could easily be 

 made to furnish a very large revenue to the 

 state, has been stocked several times; but when 

 the salmon returned to the river they were all 

 caught by the netters at the mouth, in viola- 

 tion of the law, and, so evenly were the political 

 parties divided, that the poachers held the 

 balance of power, and a governor of the state 

 told me that either party which might try to 

 punish their depredations would inevitably be 

 ousted from power. 



The Hudson, as to which there is some doubt 

 of its having been a salmon river, — though it 

 has certainly in its upper waters every requisite 



