lU SALMONID^ OF BRITAIN. 



improbable tbey would have permitted masters in England feeding tlieir servants 

 upon them. That such prohibitions were not unknown in other countries can be 

 demonstrated, thus in Western Ponicrania on the river Oder and its affluents, the 

 monastic accounts show that a regulation was in force prohibiting salmon being 

 given as food more than three days in a week (Gadcnv). 



As regards the price of salmon we are told that about A.D. 1754 it was raised 

 at Stirling from one penny to twopence a pound, while mutton and beef could 

 be obtained at a penny a pound. B^lrt (p. 129) also observed, 1754, that "a 

 Highland gentleman who went to London by sea, soon after his landing passed by 

 a tavern where the larder appeared to the street, and operated so strongly upon 

 his appetite that he went in. That there were among other things a rump of beef 

 and some salmon : of the beef lie ordered a steak for himself, ' but,' says he, ' let 

 Duncan have some salmon.' To be short, the cook who attended him humoured 

 the jest and the master's eating was 8tZ and Duncan's came to almost as many 

 shillings." In a petition from the inhabitants near the Eden in 1805 it was stated 

 that the cost of fish fiom the 8olway, owing to the destruction of the breed of 

 salmon and the monopoly of two persons, had augmented the cost fi-om 3d, 2d and 

 Ih-l to Is, Is 6d and 2s a pound. 



But there are many disturbing circumstances which render it difficult to 

 compare the price charged a century ago to what obtains at the present time,* 

 thus consequent upon temporary lai'ge hauls a local superabundance of salmon 

 must have occurred along the banks of some of our best fishing streams. For 

 want of carriage would have prevented their being distributed throughout the 

 country in ways now practicable by steamers, railways, improved roads, better 

 methods of conveyance, and the employment of ice in packing fish. 



Thus in or near seaports, as Berwick, Pennant, writing in 1776, informs us 

 that the Tweed fish were sent fresh to London in baskets by sailing vessels, unless 

 the craft was disappointed by contrary winds, when they were relanded, boiled, 

 pickled, and kitted and so dispatched, while other fresh ones replaced them in the 

 baskets. At the commencement of the season, wlien a s/tyi teas on ihe point of 

 sailirig, a fresh, clean salmon would sell from Is to Is 6d a pound, and the price 

 at such periods was from 5s to 9s a stone of 18 lb. 101 oz. weight, but the value 

 rose and fell according to the plenty or paucity of fish and the prospect of a fair 

 or a foul wind. In the month of July, when they were said to be most plentiful, 

 the cost has been known to be as low as 8d per stone, but in 1775 never less than 

 Is 4(Z and from that to 2s 6d. While to pay the expenses of the Tweed 

 salmon fisheries Pennant estimated it would be necessary to capture 208,000 fish 

 annually. 



Mr. Little in his evidence before the Salmon Commissioners in 1824 (p. 107) 

 stated respecting the Moy fishery at Ballina in Ireland that the population were 

 hostile because "before we exported the salmon to England from these fisheries 

 they got their salmon very low, probably not more than fcZ or Id a pound. Now 

 that we export them to England a salmon cannot be got there at these prices. . . 

 Locally in the spring months we generally obtain \0d a pound : that is during 

 the months of Febi'uary, March, and April. In other months about 6J ; say June, 

 July and August. Some we sell as low as Zd. At some of the stations which are 

 away from our ice-houses we cannot get so much for them." In 18G0 the Salmon 

 Commissioners reported " it was stated, and we do not doubt the assertion, that 

 salmon was sold fifty years ago in some of the towns in Wales or in Devonshire 

 at 4cZ, 2tZ and litZ a pound. . . . The depreciation in the rentals of salmon 



* Mr. Eussel -rn'ote as follows: — "There is a fallacy in measviring the difference between 

 former abundance and present scarcity by statements like this or comparisons between past and 

 present prices. Some people seem to forget that even since the least old of the old times with 

 which comparison has generally been made, the number of mouths has at least trebled, and that 

 consequently, even if this represented, as it does not, the whole increase of consumers, there 

 would necessarily be a comparative scarcity, unless the fish had trebled too. But the mouths 

 have not only trebled, they are incomparably more easily reached. In the old times, though 

 there was a glut at Berwick and Perth, there might be a dearth at London, and probably an 

 entire destitution at Nottingham and Derby." 



