for my purposes at present will answer so far as to force 

 the consideration of this important matter not only upon 

 the Government and leaders of opinion in Ireland, but 

 likewise upon the minds of those in this country wdio, for 

 private gain or sympathy with the poor, would like 

 to see utilized all practical means for providing their 

 sustenance. 



The inland waters of the 32 counties as given in this 

 most truthful publication amount to 574,887 acres, and 

 the supply from them is confined to the comparatively 

 few tons of salmon and eels which are supplied from 

 the large lakes into or from which rivers run, and both 

 these fish are restricted from price to the class of luxury. 

 My next move, after contemplating my figures, was to 

 discover from the resources of the Exhibition whether 

 indeed such a treasure of industrial and food resource did 

 lie at our command under the smooth waters of our inland 

 lakes hitherto unutilized. England could find me no 

 information except in a book on ponds, by Marshall, some 

 120 years ago, though I believe, if my classics had not 

 been like the neglected waters, Caesar would have informed 

 me that the Romans provided for their certain supply by 

 ponds in Britain. Ireland too has sundry local names which 

 prove that our ancestors there — those who, like myself, have 

 a portion of the blood of the breechless Bryan Boroohne 

 — secured to the religious houses the necessary piscatorial 

 supply ; but what I could not obtain from the old country 

 herself, her reliant and provident children of the West 

 voluntarily and kindly afforded ; and it is to the extraor- 

 dinary — in the broadest sense of the word — knowledge and 

 experience of my friend, the United States Commissioner, 

 that I am indebted for the following facts. 



In the United States the cultivation of fish is not left 



