FOR PLEASURE AND PROFIT. 



41 



If you really mean business in connection with your rearing 

 ponds and I presume that you do it is ais well to dig them 

 direct from the soil. It is a golden rule to do so when they 

 are formed off a stream. Cement sides and bottoms to a rear- 

 ing pond are a mistake. The only material that may be used 

 with safety, other than mother earth, is wood; and where 

 the soil is of such a tricky nature that some support becomes 

 necessary, stout planking, well charred and carefully covered 



CONTROLLING SLUICES IN PONDS. 



with black varnish, answers the purpose admirably, and plank- 

 lined ponds may well rank next to those dug direct from the 

 soil. My next illustration is of a typical rearing pond, at the 

 Earl of Denbigh's fishery, Holywell, North Wales, and 

 Fig. 11 shows a simple method of digging such a pond. 

 I have purposely omitted the inlets and outlets, including the 

 controlling sluice, a,s these are dealt with fully in another chap- 

 ter, and I wish to keep the instructions for digging a pond out- 

 side the pale of the slightest complication. Fig. 11, then, 

 shows the way of digging ai pond after an approved manner. 

 A is a cross-section at the deepest end of the pond ; 



