FISH CULTURE. 209 



plants of fish recorded. This is the crucial point. The reports 

 generally very fully anticipate the results, but rarely refer back to 

 them. It is the duty of the Government to educate and to,regulate ; 

 it is the part of private enterprise to produce. At present the law 

 of the land operates prejudicially to salmon-culture. The purchase 

 and retention of salmon for breeding purposes should be legalised ; 

 District Boards should have the power of netting for spawning fish, 

 and of retaining those caught, and of working any cruive or other 

 engine in then- district for this purpose, of course under proper 

 restrictions. And one of these restrictions should be that the 

 ova so obtained are properly developed, and the fry liberated, to 

 the satisfaction of the Inspector of Fisheries in England, or the 

 Fishery Board for Scotland ; otherwise, salmon-culture would be 

 followed here by the same destruction of the fishery and waste of 

 money which has attended it in Canada. Compare the Tay in the 

 latter days of the Stormoutfield ponds with the Tay this season, 

 when the new and properly constructed house at .Dupplin, on its 

 tributary the Earn, has told for the first time (1885). 



But this is not the whole gain. With retaining-ponds the 

 spawners can be selected, and all the advantages of an improved 

 breed obtained. Rivers will, to a great extent, be early or late, at 

 the option of the District Board. Often it is impossible to change 

 a late river into an early one, or vice versa, but an early river can 

 be improved by adding a number of late fish, and a late river very 

 much improved by adding a very large number of early fish. This 

 can only be accomplished by means of retaining-ponds to enable us 

 to select the breeders most fitted to our purpose. 



The retaining-ponds require the following considerations to be 

 attended to : they must have water-carriage from the place the 

 fish are caught ; they should be capable of being drained dry from 

 the centre of the bottom ; they should be shallow at the inlet and 

 the outlet ends ; they should have a large supply of water, at least 

 1,000,000 gallons per diem, to each pond; they should be 10 feet 

 deep in the centre ; they must have banks 2 feet high on each 

 slope to an angle of 45, and turfed, to prevent injury to the 

 fish from jumping. There should be at least three of these 



o 



