the last fifteen years I have received 

 hundreds of letters of enquiry about sal- 

 mon rivers. I have always replied to them to the 

 best of my ability. For the benefit of those who 

 may seek information, I will add a few notes on 

 our different rivers and some of their scores, and 

 will venture to say something in regard to what I 

 think might be done with some others. 



Before going any further, however, I may say 

 that there are two things absolutely necessary to 

 a river before it can become a salmon river, and 

 these are perfectly clean water and a reasonable 

 area of spawning ground, namely good clear 

 gravelly bottom. Salmon may enter muddy or 

 polluted streams, but they will not spawn in them, 

 and even if they did I do not believe that the ova 

 would thrive, so that no amount of re-stocking 

 would ever do any good. 



A case in point is the Ste. Anne River a few 

 miles east of Quebec. In October, 1878, I was 

 requested by Mr. H. Stanley Smith, who was then 

 the proprietor of the Ste. Anne, to inspect his 

 river with a view to ascertaining whether it could 

 be improved in any way. He told me that he had 

 spent about fourteen thousand dollars on the river 

 in various ways, such as paying a number of 



