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the waters. France has more than 4600 miles of lakes 

 and ponds. French statisticians compute the annual 

 gain from the freshivater fisheries at four million francs 

 ($800,000), and the annual rent of every hectare of water 

 at $15 (or 30J-. per acre). The fisheries, however, are not 

 yet able to supply the home demand." " By the cultivation 

 of fish in France, at first in the rivers in the localities 

 where there was the greatest amount of poverty, a new life 

 has been developed, so that many a poor fisher and farmer 

 has become a man of means through his little fish-pond." 

 The Marquis de Jolleville in Normandy, from one stream 

 and fish-pond, made $750 to $900, that ten years since 

 did not produce one." 



Coming to Austria, the United States Commission quotes 

 "Carl Peyrer," that from 370,500 to 492,000 pounds of carp 

 are sent annually to Vienna from the estate of Willuyn 

 alone in the south of Bohemia ; the acre of water in Austria 

 is valued at $9 (or 36i'.). The same authority writes : 

 " Civilized tiations cannot do without this important aliment 

 without detriment to themselves. Fish even without an 

 elaborate dressing forms a good and easily prepared meal for 

 the labouring classes ; tlicir jiesh contains as large a quantity 

 of proteine as pork. 100 lbs. (Austrian) of fish flesh con- 

 tains as much nourishing matter as 200 lbs. of wheat-bread, 

 or 700 lbs. of potatoes " ; — prodigious fact, which brings me 

 back to a consideration of the primitive denizen of a farm in 

 Galway or Donegal striving to eke out a miserable existence 

 on the watery tuber to which his primitive knowledge and 

 situation holds him, while close to the doors, with the full 

 moonlight reflecting his own shadowy life on its neglected 

 waters, lies the lake which might hold, with half the labour 

 of his potato plot, 15 times the nutriment (considering the 

 deterioration from disease) in a given zveight. 574,887 acres 



