74 EXAMPLES OF 



found their way to the upper streams and lakes, there 

 they naturally breed, returned to and from the sea. 



These ladders are constructed over the first per- 

 pendicular rock of thirty feet, the water from which 

 falls into the tide-way ; the second falls are at Ballo- 

 sidare corn mills, about twenty feet in height ; the 

 third is at Callooney. Previously to the construction 

 of these ladders not a single fish could ever surmount 

 these falls, but after their construction the salmon 

 passed up and down them with the greatest ease, and 

 after eleven years the number of salmon caught has 

 been stated at ten thousand fish in one year ; area, 

 260 square miles. 



This may be considered as the most successful and 

 extraordinary example of the beneficial results arising 

 from the practical cultivation of a salmon river with- 

 out exception. 



Previously this river had been entirely unproduc- 

 tive, and might have remained so had it not been for 

 the intelligence and enterprise of a single individual, 

 who erected ladders and enabled the fish to have un- 

 interrupted access to their breeding ground, where 

 alone they could reproduce their species, and without 

 having recourse to any artificial system for propaga- 

 ting the ova ; here we see nature accomplished the 

 whole object so soon as the parent fish were allowed 

 access to the spawning grounds, and were protected 

 whilst upon them. 



I shall now allude to the finest salmon river in 

 Europe, the Rhine, the river from which, probably, 

 the largest numbers of the largest fish are obtained 

 in the finest condition, and this without the least 

 protection, care, cultivation, or cost of any kind from 

 any man. It may be said to be the very best salmon 

 river in Europe, and is the least cared for or cultiva- 

 ted. With no destructive pollutions of its waters, 

 and with no natural or artificial obstruction to inter- 



