SALMON 



249 



I am not an upper proprietor on a Scotch salmon stream, for 

 the chances are I should have passed through the vexations 

 of many law-suits, and probably have spent more than the 

 value of such a property in trying to assert my rights to have 

 a share of the fish protected and reared in my river at my 

 expense, for to me the whole thing appears much the same as 

 if a sheep farmer demanded from some other farmer with more 

 suitable ground that he should rear and graze his lambs for 

 nothing ! 



Presently, however, the lower proprietors themselves began 

 to feel the attacks of the increasing numbers of sea nets, as 

 a steady loss of rental began to overtake them. In self-defence 

 they started fresh netting stations and worked harder, but 

 their efforts have been nearly useless, for during the past 

 forty years the netting stations in the estuaries and low 

 down on the rivers have alike experienced a continuous falling 

 off in rentals, and it is a fact, for which I have the authority 

 of the owner, that one of the best stations on the Tay, which 

 let in 1854 for ^1,725, was let in 1894 for ^972, or a decrease 



of /753- 



It is equally a fact that in the eleven years from 1834 to 

 1844, the Scotch salmon fisheries yielded an average of 29,000 

 boxes of fish of 150 lbs. each, while from 1879 to 1889 the 

 average was but 24,000 boxes, and the total decrease in the 

 last eleven years, as compared with the earlier mentioned 

 eleven years, is no less than 3,683 tons of fish, and estimating 

 them as weighing ten pounds each, there is a loss of 825,000 

 salmon. Here, then, is incontrovertible proof of the slow but 

 certain deterioration of our salmon supply, while I feel very 

 confident that from 1894 to 1904 there will be a still heavier 

 falling off 



The laws which at present regulate the salmon fisheries 

 are practically the same as those made in 1861, or forty 

 years ago, but the multiplication of sea and river nets during 

 the last twenty years, with the improved methods of working. 



