330 DOMESTICATED TROUT. 



fish, at the time I have indicated, were boiled in pickle, or 

 split up and cured as kippers. In those days there were 

 neither steamboats nor railways to hurry away the produce 

 of the sea or river to London or Liverpool. It is not sur- 

 prising, therefore, that in those good old times salmon 

 could almost be had for the capturing. Poaching — that 

 is, poaching as a trade — was unknown. As I have al- 

 ready stated, when the people resident on a river were 

 allowed to capture as many fish as they pleased, or when 

 they could purchase all they required at a nominal price, 

 there was no necessity for them to capture the salmon 

 while it was on the beds in order to breed. Farm-servants 

 on the Tay or Tweed had usually a few poached fish, in 

 the shape of a barrel of pickled salmon, for winter use. 

 At that time, as I have already said in treating of the sal- 

 mon, men went out on a winter night to "burn the water," 

 but then it was simply by way of having a frolic. In 

 those halcyon days country gentlemen killed their salmon 

 in the same sense as they killed their own mutton, namely, 

 for household eating ; there was no other demand for the 

 fish than that of their own servants or retainers. Farmers 

 kept their smoked or pickled salmon for winter use, in the 

 same way as they did pickled pork or smoked bacon. 

 The fish, comparatively speaking, were allowed to fulfil 

 the instincts of their nature and breed in peace ; those 

 owners, too, of either upper or lower waters, who delighted 

 in angling, had abundance of attractive sport ; and, so far 

 as can be gleaned from personal inquiry or reading, there 

 was during the golden age of the salmon a rude plenty 

 of home-prepared food of the fish kind, which, even with 

 the best-regulated fisheries, we can never again, in these 

 times of increasing population, steam power, and aug- 

 mented demand, hope to see. 



At present the very opposite of all this prevails. Far- 

 mers or cottars cannot now make salmon a portion of their 



