40 The Atlantic Salmon 



have made the Hudson as productive of food 

 at a very sUght cost as twice its area in tillable 

 land. 



While much has been done by artificial propa- 

 gation and stocking to prevent the extermination 

 of salmon and to introduce them in depleted 

 rivers, these means alone will not make a river 

 good or keep it so. Its whole length, from 

 mouth to source, must be watched to insure the 

 safe ascent to the spawning beds of a sufficient 

 number of fish to keep up the supply, and to look 

 out for their protection while engaged in the 

 work of breeding and finding their way back to 

 the sea. The methods in vogue in the United 

 States, where we have so many rivers capable of 

 producing unlimited quantities of salmon at 

 nominal cost, are to put the young fry in the 

 head waters and then leave them for the rest of 

 their short lives to their own devices. They get 

 down to the sea all right, but when they come 

 back for the first time they are practically all 

 taken by the netters. The law in New York 

 and Connecticut provides that any salmon taken 

 by the shad nets shall be released, but of course 

 this is never done. A netter told me he took 

 a salmon of thirty-eight pounds just above 



