476 PLENTIFULNESS OF SALMON LONG AGO. [CHAP. XL 



thought to have been a golden age so far as the salmon- 

 fisheries were concerned. But, in my opinion, it is more 

 than questionable if salmon, or indeed any of our sea or 

 river animals, ever were so magically abundant as has been 

 represented. At the time, a rather indefinite time, however 

 ranging from the beginning to the end of last century, and 

 frequently referred to by writers on the salmon question 

 when farm-servants were compelled to eat of that fish more 

 frequently than seemed good for their stomachs, or when the 

 country laird, visiting London, ordered a steak for himself, 

 with " a bit o' saumon for the laddie," and was thunderstruck 

 at the price of the fish, we must bear in mind, as a strong 

 element of the question, that there were few distant markets 

 available ; it was only on the Tweed, Tay, Severn, and other 

 salmon streams that the salmon was really plentiful. 



No such regular commerce as that now prevailing was 

 carried on in fresh salmon at the period indicated. In fact, 

 properly speaking, there was no commerce beyond an occa- 

 sional dispatch to London per smack, or the sale of a few 

 fish in country market-towns, and salmon has been known 

 to be sold in these places at so low a rate as a penny or two- 

 pence a pound weight. Most of these fish, at the time I have 

 indicated, were boiled in pickle, or split up and cured as 

 kippers. In those days there were neither steamboats nor 

 railways to hurry away the produce of the sea or river to 

 London or Liverpool ; it is not surprising, therefore, that in 

 those good old times salmon could almost be had for the 

 capturing. Poaching that is poaching as a trade was un- 

 known. As I have already stated, when the people resident 

 on a river were allowed to capture as many fish as they pleased, 

 or when they could purchase all they required at a nominal 

 price, there was no necessity for them to capture the salmon 

 while it was on the beds in order to breed. Farm-servants 

 on the Tay or Tweed had usually a few poached fish, in the 



