Book II. INLAND FISHERIES. 565 



3604. The oyster is to be found on most of the rocky shallows on the east and south 

 coasts of Britain and Ireland. The most remarkable circumstances attending this 

 fishery is the feeding or nursing of the oysters, which is almost exclusively practised in 

 Essex. It has been tried, it is said, in the mouths of the Seine and some other rivers of 

 France without success. The oysters are brought from the coast of Hampshire, Dorset, 

 and other maritime counties, even as far as Scotland, and laid in the beds or layings in 

 the creeks adjoining those rivers. The number of vessels immediately employed in the 

 dredging for oysters are about 200, from twelve to forty or fifty tons burden each, em- 

 ploying from 400 to 500 men and boys. The quantity of oysters bred and taken in 

 Essex and consumed annually, mostly in London, is supposed to amount to 14,000 or 

 15,000 bushels. 



Sect. II. Of River, Lake, and other Inland Fisheries. 



3605. The only inlandjtshery of any importance is that of the salmon. Salmon fisheries. 

 Marshal observes, are " copious and constant sources of human food ; they rank next to 

 agriculture. They have indeed one advantage over every other internal produce : their 

 increase does not lessen other articles of human sustenance. The salmon does not prey 

 on the produce of the soil, nor does it owe its size and nutritive qualities to the destruc- 

 tion of its compatriot tribes. It leaves its native river at an early state of growth ; and, 

 going even naturalists know not where, returns of ample size, and rich in human nourish- 

 ment; exposing itself in the narrowest streams, as if nature intended it as a special boon to 

 man. In every stage of savageness and civilization, the salmon must have been conr. 

 sidered as a valuable benefaction to this country." This fish being rarely caught, except 

 in estuaries or rivers, may be considered in a great degree as private property, and it may 

 tlierefore be presumed that the fishery is conducted to the greatest possible extent and 

 advantage. From the extremity of the Highlands, and from the Orkney and Shetland 

 islands, these fish are sent up ta the London market in ice ; and when the season is at 

 its height, and the catch more than can be taken off hand fresh, they are then salted, 

 pickled, or dried, for winter consumption at home, and for the foreign markets. Per- 

 haps the fishery of the Tweed is the first in point of the quantity caught, which is some- 

 times quite astonishing, several hundreds being taken at a single draught of the net. 



3606. The salmon as they are caught are packed in ice, and sent away in vessels well 

 known under the name of Berwick smacks. Formerly it was all pickled and kitted, 

 after being boiled, and sent to London under the name of Newcastle salmon ; but the 

 present mode has so raised the value of the fish, as nearly to have banished this article of 

 food from the inhabitants in the environs of the fishery, except as an expensive luxury. 

 Within memory, salted salmon formed a material article of economy in all the farm 

 houses of the vale of Tweed, insomuch that indoor servants often bargained that they 

 should not be obliged to take more than two weekly meals of salmon. It could then be 

 bought at 2s. the stone, of nineteen pounds weight ; it is now never below 125., often 

 36.9., and sometimes two guineas. 



3607. With respect tg the improvemetit of salmon fisheries, admitting that the individual 

 fish which are bred in any river, instinctively return to the same from the sea, the most 

 obvious means of increase in any particular river, is that of suffering a suflficient number 

 of grown salmon to go up to the spawning grounds ; protecting them while there, and 

 guarding the infant shoals in their passage from thence to the ocean. Even admitting 

 that those which are bred witliin the British islands, and escape the perils that await 

 them, return to these islands, it is surely a matter of some importance, viewed in a public 

 light, to increase and protect the breed. It is a well ascertained fact, tliat salmon pass 

 up toward the spawning grounds of different rivers at different seasons, or times of the 

 year ; consequently, no one day in the year can be properly fixed by law to give them 

 free passage up rivers in general. Each river of the island should have its particular day 

 of liberation ; which ought to be some weeks before the known close of the spawning 

 season, in a given river. The better to assure the ascent of salmon after the day of 

 liberation, all mills, weirs, and other obstructions, whose proprietors have, by ancient 

 custom, the right of taking salmon, ought to be under legal regulations ; and to be 

 liable to the free inspection, not only of other proprietors of the same river, but 

 of the public in general ; to see that a free, obvious, and easy passage be made for 

 the fish to ascend ; the law making it equal felony to destroy or wilfully to obstruct, 

 after the days specified, salmon passing up to a spawning ground. And the more ef- 

 fectually to protect the spawning grounds, let the same penalty be there perpetual. Let 

 each branch of every river have a fixed point, above which it shall be felony to destroy 

 salmon wilfully at any season of the year. This regulation would, it is conceived, be of 

 essential use. For, in times of floods, it is not all the vigilance of man, nor scarcely 

 any obstacle he can raise, which is able to prevent salmon that are near their time of 

 spawning, from ascending the upper branches of rivers ; namely, the brooks and rivulets 

 here proposed to be strictly guarded by law. But they rarely enter these before they are 



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