TE CLAIMS OL UP rER EROPRIE LORS.” 69 
whole secret of the salmon fishery problem were summed 
up in the injunction, “First hatch your salmon and then 
catch him.” 
But it is evident that, unless rivers are at least un- 
polluted, it will be useless to turn young fry into them. 
The abolition of pollutions is therefore, artificial breeding or 
no artificial breeding, a szve gud non. ‘To the bane of weirs 
artificial breeding may be a partial antidote, since the 
young fish can go down with comparative ease, where the 
breeding fish could with difficulty get up ; but with efficient 
passes and with a reasonable stock of fish left for breeding, 
a fairly pure river will hold its own, as a salmon-producing 
stream, without artificial breeding. 
For some years several hundred thousand young salmon 
fry were turned into the Thames by Mr. Forbes of Chertsey, 
the late Mr. Frank Buckland, and the late Mr. S. Ponder. 
But not one of those fry has ever come knocking at the 
door of Mr. Forbes’ house at Chertsey, which they ought to 
have done if it be true that salmon always return to the 
spot where they were hatched; and which they might, 
metaphorically speaking, have done, if the Thames had 
been purified and its weirs provided with passes. When 
this is accomplished, and not before, artificial breeding may 
be of inestimable advantage in enabling us to sow the seed 
which shall produce the future salmon harvests of that river. 
In what may be called the “politics,” as distinguished 
from the “ economics,” of our salmon fisheries, the removal 
of weirs and pollutions is a matter of primary importance. 
The landowners on the head waters of a salmon river—in 
b 
fishery parlance the “upper proprietors ”—very naturally 
ask that they may have scme share of the fish whose 
very existence depends upon their goodwill in preserv- 
ing the spawning beds. If weirs and pollutions keep 
