216 THE SALMON. 



neglected. The ports are open to the produce of all tlie 

 world, foreign cattle and sheep come in annually by- 

 hundreds of thousands, foreign pork, hams, beef, cheese, 

 and butter by millions of cwts., foreign corn and flour 

 by tens of millions of bushels ; and even all that is but 

 a bagatelle to the additions recently made to the supplies 

 both of grain and animal food, through the extended 

 cultivation, improved methods, and greater enterprise 

 and expenditure of our own agriculture. Yet, after all, 

 here we are, with beef and mutton at lOd., and butter at 

 Is. 4d. the pound, or not greatly short of double the prices 

 to which many of this generation were at one time ac- 

 customed. All this while, it seems to have been forgotten 

 not only that man does not live by bread alone, but 

 that there is a variety or many varieties of food called 

 fish, which in popular colloquy has always been thought 

 not unworthy to he classed along with flesh. " Fish and 

 flesh " have generally been regarded as both though per- 

 haps not equally good things ; but whilst laws, capital, 

 and skill have been liusy promoting the production of 

 flesh, the kindred commodity has got but little attention 

 from the law, and still less from capital, skill, or even 

 industry — or at least the efl'orts to increase the supply 

 have been utterly ridiculous in comparison with the 

 enormous extension of the market. 



It has been too little noted that whilst the demand 

 for fish has received great increase from the improved 

 condition of the mass of the people and the dearness of 

 other kinds of food, the available or reachable market, at 

 least for fresh fish, has within not many years been en- 

 tirely revolutionized, or rather has received an almost 



