840 POND CULTURE IN QUEEN ANNE's TIME. 



North, whom you have quoted, pubhshed his book, my 

 great grandfather employed Kennedy, a noted landscape 

 gardener, to lay out the grounds at Croxdale, m the 

 county of Durham. In the garden itself there are 

 three ponds. These ponds are fed by a stream, which 

 is not allowed to run through them, but is let in by 

 sluices at pleasure. The stream is conveyed by an 

 artificial watercourse outside, which is clearly a wise 

 precaution against their filling up with sediment during 

 floods, thus preventing an awful amount of trouble and 

 expense hereafter. No. 1 is a small pond used as a 

 stew, in which fat fish are kept which are ready for 

 the table and which have been netted from Nos. 2 and 

 S, or from the many other ponds on the property. It 

 is in this stew that there is a capital contrivance for 

 taking out the fish which I have not met with else- 

 ■where, and which I will try to describe. The deepest 

 part of this little pond is at the sluice, where it is 

 emptied mto No. 2, near which is a strong square 

 wooden box, say four feet deep by five square, and this 

 is sunk flush with the bottom of the pond, having two 

 ]30sts let in on each side at the middle of each end of 

 the box. To these posts are fixed the ordinary gear of 

 a draw-well, the chain bemg, I think, divided to hook 

 upon rings on the sides of an inner box, which has 

 holes at the bottom. When the fish are required, the 

 sluice is opened and the fish of course retire into the 

 deepest water, which is the inner box. The box is then 

 wound up, fish and all : this is easily done since the 

 water runs out through the holes in the bottom." 



Ponds which have laid dry for one summer are the 

 best for breeding. There should be rushes and water- 

 plants about for fish to deposit their eggs. I also 

 strongly recommend that when fish, such as carp, are 



