68 SUCCESS IN 



CHAPTER VII. 



SUCCESS IN SALMON BREEDING, 



Although I was the first to try the experiment of 

 breeding salmon artificially in the United Kingdom, 

 and have continued the system to the present time, 

 yet time and experience have convinced me that the 

 increase in the produce and value has not arisen from 

 the adoption of any artificial means of hatching and 

 rearing the young fish, but in consequence of in- 

 creased care in the general cultivation of the fishery, 

 and principally by protecting the parent fish, and by 

 providing an ample stock of them to reproduce their 

 species in large quantities, over a period of some 

 years, and by closing the fishing season on 12th 

 August, although by law we could continue to kill 

 them till 31st of that month. This allows a greater 

 number of parent fish to go up the rivers to breed. 

 Our season for fishing in 1865 did not exceed about 

 1 35 days out of 365 in the year, the principal harvest 

 being only for about forty days, between the months 

 of March and August. 



In 1863 an Act was passed for Ireland, which pro- 

 hibited for the future the erection of any fixed nets 

 whatever, and has provided for the construction 

 within one year of " Queen's gaps," or free passes, in 

 all fishing weirs across rivers, and enlarging all those 

 that now exist to not less than one-tenth part of the 

 width of the river, these to be placed in the deepest 

 part of the stream, with an uninterrupted free passage 

 at all times. The same principle has since been ap- 

 plied to England, thereby to prevent the possibility 



