1 8 An Angler's Paradise. 



trout. This is not so, as we have seen, and I fully believe that 

 before long it will be plainly demonstrated that pike can be suffi- 

 ciently banished, when desired, from a great many of our waters 

 in which they now exist. When the mode of dealing with them 

 is as well studied and practised as that of dealing with land pests, 

 we shall soon find out ways and means for getting rid of them. 



There is an old saying, that he who makes two blades of 

 grass to grow where only one grew before, is a benefactor to his 

 fellow-men. Many people have dealt with blades of grass, and as 

 we are well aware, some of them have met with a considerable 

 amount of success. Now there are a few of us who have devoted 

 our energies to something else, and I hope to show that it is not 

 only quite possible, but often comparatively easy in a great many 

 cases, to make fish grow where but few fish grew before. The 

 fish culturist has been a long time in " coming to the scratch," but 

 take care he does not beat the botanist after all. That this 

 growing of fish is not only possible, but has in many places already 

 been done successfully, is now an established fact. 



Ponds have recently been constructed in many places by 

 those who have become alive to the advantages of fish culture as 

 it is carried on at the present day. I have seen as a result the 

 delighted angler filling his basket, not with little fingerlings, such 

 as we have been accustomed to catch in so many of our mountain 

 streams, but bringing to bank, after tough resistance, fish after fish, 

 requiring the use of the landing-net, and weighing pounds instead 

 of ounces. 



To leave the busy din and bustle of the city, and after a 

 comfortable journey, as it is now accomplished by rail, to find 

 one's-self located in the 



" Land of the mountain and the flood," 



to see the mists creeping up the mountain sides, and to stand, rod 

 in hand, in some lonely glen, gazing at the beauty of the scene, 

 as bursts of glowing sunshine are thrown from Nature's lantern 

 upon sheets of mist and mellow-tinted mountain sides, to view 

 the jutting crag o'er which the raven croaks her echoed call of 

 warning, and to see the gaunt pine trees stand forth amid the 

 whirling mass ; to see them growing clearer, more defined, as Sol, 

 more powerful, drives his weaker foe into oblivion ; ah ! that foe 



