ii2 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 



with great detail, and his advice is as useful in 

 the nineteenth century as it was in the sixteenth. 

 The chief thing he lays stress upon is that, as 

 he says, " a crop of fish should alternate with a 

 crop of vegetables," or, in other words, that 

 every pond in turn should be run dry, and 

 planted with a crop of some kind of grain before 

 it is again filled and re-stocked. From this 

 point of view, he looks with favour on the 

 " three-pond " system : 



" Suppose three ponds to be in existence, A, B, and C. 

 Let the water be run off from pond A completely, and as 

 it empties catch the fish and place them in pond B. 

 Having let A run completely dry, plant the mud with 

 oats, barley, cabbages, or rye-grass. The crops having 

 been in due time reaped, refill it in the winter, and stock 

 it with fry. Then dry and plant B. At the same time 

 dispose of all the larger marketable fish, and put the half 

 and three-parts grown fish into pond C, which now, for 

 the first time, is taken into the regular round of cultiva- 

 tion. Thus with three ponds worked upon this system, 

 the proprietor will always have a crop of vegetables 

 growing in one pond, yearling fry in another pond, and 

 breeders, with the fish fattening for the market, in the 

 third." 



No system that has ever been invented is 

 better than this. Those who adopt it avoid 



