130 Angling Travels in Norway. 



be asked in excess of what competent anglers would 

 consider to be their value. 



Now the question arises, What is the value of a 

 fishery ? An extremely difficult one to answer, for it 

 contains so many factors. It is all very well to argue 

 that a moor is worth no more than a certain sum per 

 head of each grouse killed, or that the rent of a salmon 

 river shall not exceed the equivalent of a fixed sum for 

 each fish landed ; but of what practical use are either 

 of these limits so long as there are men in the world 

 who will exceed them, and whose incomes enable them 

 to attach a comparatively small value to the coin of the 

 realm. 



It simply amounts to this : that the market value 

 of a fishery, like that of most commodities, is precisely 

 what it will fetch, and, however galling it may be, we 

 poorer brethren must for the time being succumb, directly 

 or indirectly, to those whose while it is worth to outbid 

 us ; and, unfortunately for us, there can be but little 

 doubt that angling rents, both at home and abroad, 

 are steadily on the rise, for the rank and file of the 

 noble army of anglers is being daily recruited. 



The Anglo-Norwegian angler, who at one time had 

 Norsk rivers almost entirely to himself, has many com- 

 petitors, and can we be surprised that a professional or 

 business man, who has but one leisure month of twelve, 



