PROPAGATION OF FISH. 231 
in fact, the sportsmen wonlcl take the affair into their 
own hands, if the proper legislation conld be obtained. 
But so long as private individuals are allowed to dam 
the water-courses by an obstruction so constructed that 
the fish cannot surmount it, so long will private enter- 
prise and public effort both be in vain. A dam, no mat- 
ter how high, is rendered entirely harmless by being pro- 
vided with a narrow sluiceway or flume, a few feet wide 
and leading to the water beneath, or by boxes placed 
one below another, making a number of small leaps. 
Tliis the salmon can surmount, even with a moderate 
depth of water, and will, if left undisturbed, readily 
ascend at night. It occasions no loss to the proprietor, 
is built at little expense, and yet the want of it has cost 
our State alone millions. It is now required in the dams 
of Lower Canada, where effective laws have lately been 
found necessary to preserve the fish even there from 
annihilation, and could be introduced on all our streams 
for one-tenth the annual tax we pay to the British Pro- 
vinces for salmon. With the destruction of the forests, 
saw-mills, those enemies of fish-kind, have greatly dimin- 
ished, and could easily be so regulated as to do no harm, 
and as the same thing may be said of the tanneries, there 
need be nothing to drive the fish away were the waters 
replenished. This we sportsmen will undertake to do, if 
our legislature will, for a few moments, forget Eepubli- 
can and Democrat, and attend to the interests of their 
constituents by passing laws similar to these enacted for 
the Canadas. 
It is strange indeed that, while we pay a heavy bounty 
to our countrymen engaged in the cod fisheries, we 
