EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xiii 



First, pollution must be checked or neutralised. 

 I am quite sure that science will soon be able to deal 

 with almost any effluent, sewerage, industrial, or 

 arterial (from tar-treated roads), so that it can be 

 made innocuous to river life, and in that way a 

 great part of the trouble will be removed without 

 undue prejudice to important industrial interests. 

 It is the duty of fishery preservers and anglers to 

 urge on the men of science and to help them to the 

 utmost of their power. 



Next, an effort must be made to reduce the amount 

 of netting in all rivers where the stock has fallen off. 

 If possible all netting should be suspended for a 

 term of years. This would involve capital outlay, 

 but in the end it would be money well invested. 

 We have a recent object lesson of what can be done 

 in that wonderful river the Wye. By about 1900 

 the catch of fish to the nets, plied in both estuary 

 and fresh water, had fallen to some seventeen tons, 

 while the rod fishing was almost negligible. Then 

 the Wye Fisheries Association leased the estuary 

 nets, a bye-law was passed making fresh-water 

 netting illegal, and the river received a three-year 

 respite from netting everywhere. Since then the 

 estuary netting has been resumed, but only so far 

 as to pay the Association's expenses. The result is 

 that the Wye has recovered all its old fame as a 

 salmon river and more also. The 17 tons caught in 

 the nets in 1900 meant about 3000 fish. By 1913 

 the rods alone were catching some 3500, and the re- 

 stricted netting accounted for well over 6000, while 

 the catch in the Severn nets had risen to 25,000, 



