REQUISITES OF A SALMON FISHERY. 5 I 



CHAPTER III. 



REQUISITES OF A SALMON FISHERY, 



My object being to point out the indispensable 

 requisites that constitute a prolific and well-conducted 

 salmon fishery, I shall now enter into the natural 

 history of the salmon. In the first place, we may 

 assume that no river can be productive of a large 

 quantity of fish, unless it possess an adequate extent 

 of accessible and suitable breeding ground. Salmon 

 can only be bred in fresh water, and it is in the small 

 streams or upon shallow gravel beds that they can be 

 the most successfully hatched and reared, and also in 

 clear rippling currents, free from mud and pollutions 

 of every kind. This is evinced in the natural in- 

 stincts of the parent fish, which always induces it to 

 select such places. The sluggish portions of a deep 

 river with mud banks, are therefore of no value for 

 breeding purposes if the ova should be deposited in 

 such places it would soon become enveloped in mud, 

 would be unproductive, or the young fry when 

 hatched would die from the want of rippling aerated 

 and pure water. The next requisite is an adequate 

 stock of breeding fish to occupy the spawning-ground, 

 every yard of which should be fully sowed with ova. 

 If the number of parent fish should be insufficient to 

 accomplish this object, just in the same proportion 

 will the future catch fall off, and the profits be de- 

 ficient. The young fish must be produced in great 

 abundance, after which it is easy to devise the means 

 of catching them when adults, and in dry seasons it 

 is not difficult to destroy too many, to the injury of 



