CHAP, in.] EXTENSION OF PISCICULTURE. 117 



plan to rescue a quantity of land in Essex from the water ; it 

 would perhaps pay as well to convert the broad acres in ques- 

 tion, from their being near the great London market, into a 

 fish-farm. The English people are fond of eels, and would be 

 able to consume any quantity that might be offered for sale, 

 and the place being in such close proximity to the Thames, 

 other fish might be cultivated as well. All the best portions 

 of the hydraulic apparatus of Comacchio might be imitated, 

 and to suit the locality, such other portions as might be re- 

 quired could be invented. The art of pisciculture is but in its 

 infancy, and we may all live in the hope of seeing great 

 water farms but, to be profitable, they must be gigantic 

 for the cultivation of fish, in the same sense as we have 

 extensive grazing or feeding farms for the breeding and rearing 

 of cattle. 



In Ireland, Mr. Thomas Ashworth, of the Galway fisheries, 

 finds it as profitable and as easy to breed salmon as it is to rear 

 sheep. His fisheries are a decided success ; and, if we except 

 the cost of some extensive engineering operations in forming 

 fish-passes to admit of a communication with the sea, the cost 

 of his experiments has been trifling and the returns excep- 

 tionally large. Mr. Ashworth put into his fisheries no less 

 than a million and a half of salmon eggs in the course of two 

 seasons viz., 659,000 eggs in 1861, and 770,000 in 1862 * 

 I am anxious to obtain a consecutive and detailed account 

 of the operations carried out by the Messrs. Ashworth, but 

 have not been able to get correct particulars. Mr. Ashworth 



* " In order that the public may understand what a vast number 

 of fish 770,000 would be, I would mention that it has been calculated 

 by 'the chronicler,' Mr. James Lowe, that the number of human 

 beings assembled to welcome the arrival of the Princess of Wales was 

 700,000 : imagine a salmon for each human being, and you will have 

 an idea of the number of fish Mr. Ashworth has hatched out as a stock 

 for his fisheries." Lecture bv Mr. Buckland. 



