32 THE PIKE 



times have changed ; for fresh-water fish, ex- 

 cept at the Jews' feasts and holidays, there 

 is scarcely a market at all always excepting 

 trout ; and the poorer populations have now to 

 devour, at comparatively high prices, the offal fish 

 of Billingsgate, and the refuse sweeping out of 

 other great fish markets, i.e., the fish that are too 

 much off colour to be sold otherwise, and which 

 account for the atmosphere of Leather Lane and 

 suchlike fragrant thoroughfares. Our inland lakes, 

 ponds, and broads are lying useless, and pike would 

 well repay cultivation in them, for they grow and 

 fatten with great rapidity. I do not speak of 

 rivers, for the cultivation of pike (and eels) in rivers 

 would raise an outcry amongst trout anglers, as 

 trout have but little chance against the strength 

 and voracity of this water wolf. 



It has been asserted by many good authorities 

 that an acre of water will grow as much food as 

 three acres of land. In any given area of water or 

 land where under natural conditions can be ob- 

 tained nourishment, there is found living (taking 

 one year with another) fully as much life as can 

 support and reproduce itself ; and on this basis of 

 fact, pike could be grown and cultivated with suc- 

 cess, as carp are in Germany, where they are so 

 much valued as food. 



In one carp-pond of a fish-farm, 30,000 young 

 carp have been observed constantly to yield at 

 the end of three years, 20,000 kilogrammes, i.e., 

 50,000 Ibs. of marketable fish. It is necessary to 

 keep a few pike in the same pond, which prey upon 

 the carp to a certain extent ; the carp-culturists 

 know how many pike to introduce ; a few act 

 beneficially in destroying the smaller and more 



