284 APPENDIX 



The owner of the farm-land below Nursling Mill possesses, 

 or claims to possess, the rights to control the hatches of the 

 Little River, in the interest of his water meadows. A very 

 large number of salmon enter the Little River, and are, by the 

 closing of his hatches on that river, forced into the ditches of 

 his water meadows, and as the water is altered from ditch to 

 ditch, they either perish or disappear some probably go back 

 to sea. That this arbitrary closing of the hatches on the 

 Little River is responsible for much of the evil is undoubted. 

 Not that the hatches are entirely closed : they are open suffi- 

 ciently to permit a small stream of water to flow, but, as a 

 rule, insufficiently to permit the salmon to run to the water 

 above. 



At an inquiry held in 1906 by the Board of Agriculture and 

 Fishing the fact was elicited that there is no approved fish pass 

 on the Testwood beat, the lowest salmon water on the Test, 

 and therefore a large number of salmon are probably unable to 

 get up, except in the time of extensive floods ; but no super- 

 vision of water has so far been possible, as the land is private 

 on both sides of the river. 



Riparian owners of the salmon portion of any river are 

 naturally anxious as to rent, and when an acknowledged 

 obstruction at the head of or near above their own water 

 does not injure the prices obtainable for their own fishing, 

 they may fail to take any vigorous steps to insist on proper 

 passes being maintained. The Board of Fisheries should, 

 however, see that no obstruction exists, and as their bailiffs 

 can with perfect ease step in where strangers are not allowed, 

 they can insist on adequate and reasonable passes being 

 available at all times for the passage of salmon. 



This would, in my opinion, satisfy the owners and salmon 

 fishermen on the four miles of salmon water above Nursling. 



It was elicited at the above-mentioned inquiry that the 

 water in the Little River is stopped for months together 

 sufficiently, in fact, to prevent the salmon running until after 

 the rod season is over and that this has been done under the 



