85 



ON THE SALMON DISEASE 



(SAPROLEGNIA FERAX). 

 By Mb. H. C. Moobe, 



The great advantages of fish as an article of diet are unquestionable, not only 

 from its cheapness, but also from its suitableness as a food for all classes. It is 

 excellent for the robust, the sedentary, and for brain -workers; and it is often 

 peculiarly adapted for the delicate and the sick. A very interesting experiment 

 has recently been tried by the Board of Guardians of the Bristol Workhouse. 

 They decided to substitute for a single day, twice the amount of fish, in lieu of 

 beef, to their inmates in the Union, and they met with the following gratifying 

 result : — They found that whilst 



£ 8. d. 



2i cwt. of beef, at 653. per cwt., cost ... ... ... 8 2 6 



5 cwt. of fresh fish from Grimsby (with carriage) cost only ... 5 11 4 

 and they thus effected a reduction of expenditure in one day of £2 lis. 2d., with 

 much gratification to their inmates. With such an example of discriminating 

 economy before us, there ia sufficent reason why we should devote every atten- 

 tion to preserve an ample supply of this important article of diets : and especially 

 so when we take into consideration the value of fisheries, of which, taking one 

 branch, — that of the Salmon Fisheries — the value of the yearly produce from 

 rivers in England and Wales amounts to £150,000, and if the produce from 

 Scotland and Ireland be added, amounts to not far short of £750,000, or three- 

 quarters of a million. 



In Herefordshire we have a river which contributes its share of fish to the 

 London markets as well as to our own tables ; and we also have, fortunately, a 

 Board of Conservators, whose objects are the preservation and improvement of 

 this supply. It must be confessed, however, that there is no lack of disturbing 

 elements. The quarrels amongst conservators themselves, with the Rebeccaites, 

 poachers by night, and poachers by day, riparian owners called brinkers, netters, 

 " gentle fishermen " who have been brought up by the river side, and have 

 educated themselves to a faith that since God made the river and the fishes, 

 they have as much right to them as any other man : are not all these difficult- 

 ies chronicled in the columns of the Hereford Times and Hereford Journal ? But 

 the divers interests of all communities are now concentrated upon one subject, 

 viz. : — the fatal epidemic amongst the fish and its probable effects on the yield 

 from the river. 



The disease broke out in the river Wye for the first time, in the nature of an 

 epidemic, early in the spring of this year, 1883, and continued during the drought, 

 which lasted throughout the months of February, March, April, and the begin- 

 ning of May ; it abated after a "fresh " which occurred in the latter month. It 

 caused, as Mr. Stephens, the lessee at Hereford, states, the death of hundreds of 



