DECAY OF SALMON. 129 



There are plenty of proofs to the same effect ; since 

 the erection of fixed engines on the coasts of Aberdeen 

 and Kincardine, the annual value of the produce of the 

 rivers Dee and Don has sunk by 18,000 ; and under 

 the operation of similar causes in the Moray Firth, the 

 produce of the Beauly sank two-thirds, and of the Ness, 

 three-fourths. 



What of that, it may be said, as to the question of 

 the total supply provided for the public ? Some pro- 

 prietors may have greatly gained to the loss of others, 

 but the public are no worse. But that is only part of the 

 story ; the supply to the public has not been increased, 

 but has been greatly decreased, it being of the nature of 

 these wasteful engines to tend fast to self-destruction, 

 after and sometimes before having destroyed their neigh- 

 bours. When there were fixed nets on the fisheries of 

 the Duke of Richmond at the mouth of the Spey, he 

 could not get 6000 of rent for all his fisheries ; he put 

 down the fixtures, and now gets 13,000. Or take the 

 north-west coast of Sutherland. Bag-nets were intro- 

 duced there about thirty years ago ; for the first half of 

 the period during which they lasted they prospered 

 splendidly ; during the latter half, they fell away to 

 worthlessness. In the season of 1839 they produced 

 upwards of 16,000 salmon; in the season of 1850, 

 although the number of bag-nets on the same extent of 

 coast had been doubled, they produced only 1300 : in 

 other words, they sunk to a twelfth, or, allowing for the 

 engines of capture having been doubled in number, to a 

 twenty-fourth. These nets, which paid an annual rent 

 of 900 to the Duke of Sutherland, were then entirely 

 i 



