9 8 SURREY SCENES 



improving those of the land, that he had to create a 

 body of opinion in his favour. In this he partially 

 succeeded, mainly by his personal charm and the 

 readiness of his pen. When he died he left a number 

 of reports bearing out the old proverb that an acre 

 of water yields more than three acres of land, and a 

 museum of objects connected with the industry of 

 fish-farming as he conceived it might be developed, 

 which he bequeathed to the South Kensington Museum. 

 Had this been the gift of any one else less in earnest 

 on his subject than Buckland, it might have been 

 liable to suspicion as an attempt to secure posthumous 

 interest in a hobby. But the Buckland collection 

 speaks for itself. It is the best rough-and-ready adver- 

 tisement and propaganda of fish-farming existing in 

 London. Great part of the collection consists of casts 

 of fish made and painted from life by Buckland 

 himself. His object in leaving them for public 

 exhibition was to show the size and beauty of the 

 creatures which could be grown in our neglected 

 rivers and pools. Each cast is labelled in Buckland's 

 bold handwriting not only with the weight of the 

 fish, but the river, and sometimes the very pool or 

 reach in which it was taken. The common brown 

 trout alone ought to raise the envy of every owner 

 or renter of a stream or spring, however small, for 

 every tiny rill can be made into a pool capable of 

 fattening trout. There is a brown trout of 13^ Ibs. 

 from Britford, near Salisbury ; another of 14 Ibs. 

 from Alresford, in Hampshire. What Buckland 



