334 DOMESTICATED TROUT. 



farmer who thus destroys the hopes of a rising crop by 

 injudicious farming is not only his own enemy, but the 

 enemy of his country as well." Such evidence could be 

 multiplied to any extent, if it were necessary; but I feel 

 that quite enough has been said to prove the point. It is 

 a point I have no doubt upon whatever, and persons who 

 have studied the question are alarmed, and say it is no 

 use blinking the matter any longer, that the demand for 

 fish as an article of food is not only beginning to exceed 

 the supply, but that the supply obtained, combined with 

 waste of spawn and other causes, is beginning to exceed 

 the breeding power of the fish. In the olden time, when 

 people only caught to supply individual wants, fish were 

 plentiful, in the sense that no scarcity was ever expe- 

 rienced, and the shoals of sea fish, it was thought at one 

 time, would never diminish ; but since the traffic became 

 a commercial speculation the question has assumed a to- 

 tally different aspect, and a sufficient quantity cannot now 

 be obtained. Who ever hears now of monster turbot be- 

 ing taken by the trawlers ? Where are the miraculous 

 hauls of mackerel that used to gladden the eyes of the 

 fishermen ? Where are now the wagon-loads of herring 

 to use as manure, as in the golden age of the fisheries ? 

 I do not require to pause for the reply ; echo would only 

 mock my question by repeating it. Exhausted shoals and 

 inferior fish tell us but too plainly that there is reason for 

 alarm, and that we have in all probability broken at last 

 upon our capital stock. 



It seems perfectly clear that we hav^e hitherto seriously 

 exaggerated the stock ; it could never have been of the 

 extent indicated, because then no draughts could have had 

 any great effect, no matter how enormous they might have 

 been. From various natural causes, some of which I 

 have indicated in a former chapter, the stock has been 

 kept in balance, and it seems now perfectly clear that by 



