Sewage Farms and Trout Streams. 195 



converted into a small gold-mine. A 

 thousand trout fry may be purchased for 

 ^"5, and if kept for two years will 

 sell for ^"50 in fact, I have often 

 paid at the rate of two shillings each for 

 them. It is a mistake, also, to suppose 

 that trout will not thrive in still ponds, 

 if the latter are kept dean. I always feel 

 sorry for a trout when I see him lying in 

 a few inches of water, with perhaps two or 

 three feet of mud under him instead or 

 the bright gravel he loves so well. 



Water from a sewage farm or from 

 sewage-precipitating works ought not to 

 be allowed to flow into our streams. It 

 is quite true fish will live in it, but it 

 is equally true that it causes a rank and 

 noxious growth of flannel and other weeds, 

 and covers the gravelly bed of the stream 

 with a coating of slime. It does not 

 appear to injure the eggs of the coarse 

 fish, roach, dace, etc., as weeds are their 

 natural birth-places, and they hatch out in 

 a few days ; but trout eggs are utterly 

 destroyed, buried under this vegetable 

 slime, long before their hatching period 

 has arrived. It stands to reason that, 

 however clear it may look, sewage water 

 is liquid manure, and as such ought to. 

 be turned on to the land not into the 

 water. 



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