NEW WATERS 269 



and which ure famous for their trout. A man has 

 to travel to Derbyshire before he gets anything like 

 a good extent of available water producing fish 

 bigger than those of the ordinary mountain streams. 



This is a melancholy story, and it is not easy to 

 see how the situation may be bettered so far as the 

 chief trout streams are concerned. It has always 

 been a matter of surprise to me that some enter- 

 prising person has not taken a good length of one 

 of the best chalk streams with the definite object 

 of making a ticket -water of it. As an annexe to an 

 hotel I should have thought it could be made to 

 pay handsomely. The thing has not been done 

 so I suppose it has not seemed a sufficiently safe 

 venture. 



Though we may have to rule out the famous 

 streams from our imaginings of a world better found 

 in trout fishing, I do not think we need therefore 

 give up hope of improvement. There is much water 

 in England which is undeveloped and which might 

 be made quite productive if it was taken seriously 

 in hand. There is much land which could be turned 

 into water with a little engineering skill, some labour, 

 and a certain amount of expense, land at present 

 of small value for any agricultural purpose except 

 as very rough grazing. A survey of the more 

 southerly counties would, I am sure, suggest a 

 surprising wealth of possibilities. 



