230 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



CHAPTER XX.- 



Of Fish-ponds, and how to order them. 



PiscATOR. Doctor Lebault, the learned Frenchman, in his 

 large discourse of Maison Rustique, gives this direction for mak- 

 ing of fish-ponds : I shall refer you to him to read it at large ; 

 but I think I shall contract it, and yet make it as useful. 



He adviseth, that when you have drained the ground, and 

 made the earth firm where the head of the pond must be, that 

 you must then in that place drive in two or three rows of oak or 

 elm piles, which should be scorched in the fire, or half burnt, 

 before they be driven into the earth ; for being thus used, it pre- 

 serves them much longer from rotting : and having done so, lay 

 faggots or bavins of smaller wood betwixt them, and then earth 

 betwixt and above them ; and then having first very well rammed 

 them and the earth, use another pile in like manner as the first 

 were : and note, that the second pile is to be of or about the 

 height that you intend to make your sluice or flood-gate, or the 

 vent that you intend shall convey the overflowings of your pond, 

 in any flood that shall endanger the breaking of the pond-dam. 



Then he advises that you plant willows or owlcrs about it, or 

 both ; and then cast in bavins in some places not far from the 



' Var. — The whole of this chapter was added to the second edition, and 

 is contracted from : " Maison Rustique ; or. The Covntry Farmer, Com- 

 pyled in the French Tongue by Charles Stevens and John Liebault, 

 Doctors of Physickc, and Translated into English by Richard Svrflct, 

 Practitioner in Physicke, Lond., 1016, ibl. The original work passed 

 through many editions, being from time to time greatly enlarged. 



Besides the work of Bishop Dubravius and that of Taverner, described 

 in the Bib. Pref., Hawkins alludes to Roger North's (a Person of Honour) 

 Treatise on Fish-ponds, 1713, 14, 15, in the Gentleman Farmer, 1726, 

 8vo.,1770, 4to., and in Ebenezer Albin's work illastrating the Essay with 

 18 ct)lort?d plates, 1794. — Am. Ed. 



