220 THE SALMON. 



certain parties fought so fiercely, each for its own hand, 

 could concern only the parties so very much interested ; 

 and especially an idea has grown up and prevailed, that 

 questions about fisheries are mainly questions, not for the 

 consumers, but for the amateur catchers, of fish. Because 

 it happens that some fish, besides affording nutriment in 

 the eating, afford also amusement in the catching, a great 

 many persons conclude, when they hear about fish and 

 fisheries, that the subject is one for sportsmen ; and from 

 that conclusion they proceed, under the stimulus of a 

 feeling derived from the abuses of game-preserving, to 

 the further conclusion that any proposal for the increase 

 of fish is a thing to be discouraged. This feeling is so 

 strong in many quarters, that it is pretty certain that ij 

 it had been practicable to extract " sport" from the shoot- 

 ing or chasing of sheep, sheep would in many quarters have 

 been denounced as " vermin/' and the stealers of them have 

 been popularly regarded as a species of irregular or ille- 

 gitimate benefactors of the community. But all this is a 

 mistake ; the public have an interest of the same kind, 

 and of scarcely smaller degree, in the increase of fish as 

 in the increase of flesh or corn. That interest has, till of 

 late, been much neglected by the Legislature ; the neglect 

 has been partly repaired ; and now has arrived another 

 question, whether, besides refraining from hindering 

 Nature, man cannot, in the production of this as of other 

 kinds of food, easily and greatly help her. 



Water as well as land was designed to provide food 

 for man ; and not only is there no reason why man 

 should destroy the one source while laboriously fostering 

 the other, but there is no obstacle in Nature to water 



