258 On Fish- Culture. 



after many failures has succeeded in transporting salmon-ova, 

 packed in wet moss and charcoal, and placed under an ice-house 

 on board ship, to Australia. A letter from Hobart Town, Tasmania, 

 dated July, 1866, speaks of the continued prosperity of 7000 young 

 salmon and sea-trout, the eggs of which were dispatched from 

 England by Mr. Buckland and Mr. Francis in 1864, entirely at 

 their own expense. 



I am anxious, while trying to raise the art of Fish-Culture to 

 its legitimate position in your estimation, not unduly to exalt it. 

 I do not believe it to be omnipotent, but I consider that if used in 

 conjunction with other means for checking the increase of destructive 

 fish in our rivers, and maintaining in good condition their natural 

 advantages, it will prove a most valuable adjunct to the national 

 wealth and enjoyment. It is indeed the peculiar pleasure of those 

 who make Fish-Culture a subject of study, to know that their 

 efibrts are directed towards the profit and happiness of their fellow- 

 men. While some scientific minds are actively engaged in ascer- 

 taining the greatest velocity and precision at which projectiles of 

 enormous power can be successfully hurled at their own species, 

 while the columns of our leading journals teem with reports of the 

 progress of man's ingenuity in exterminating his own race, while 

 millions of money are consumed in maintaining in efficient discipline 

 masses of men whose sole dreadful duty it is to destroy their own 

 flesh and blood, the lovers of fish-hatching can boast of being 

 disciples of a higher art, scribes of a nobler page, heroes of an 

 inexpensive contest. Their triumphs involve no man's life, their 

 failures imperil no man's limb. The book of Nature is their rich 

 possession, their titles, their honors, their estates. The precious 

 volume is always open and will continue open when, to use the 

 noble language of Burke, " the grave shall have heaped its mould 

 upon our presumption, and the silent tomb shall have imposed its 

 law upon our pert loquacity." 



W. L. Barker. 



Hungerford, 



Septemher, 1867. 



