234 PROPAGATION OF FISH. 



their owners. There is nothing, therefore, in the least 

 startling or original about the undertaking, and it 

 requires public aid only because rivers are never here 

 owned, as in England, by one great proprietor. It 

 applies to all our fresh water and most of our salt water 

 fish, and is in full operation upon some of the smaller 

 ponds in this country. Where the fish are open to all, 

 there is not sufficient interest for one person to under- 

 take their culture, and as this must always be the case 

 with salmon, their production must be made either a 

 question of public interest or private enthusiasm. The 

 latter, with the sanction of the former, will be fully suf- 

 ficient for the purpose. 



One invariable peculiarity of the American people is, 

 that they attack, overturn and annihilate, and then 

 laboriously reconstruct. Our first farmers chopped down 

 the forests and shade trees, took crop after crop of the 

 same kind from the land, exhausted the soil and made 

 bare the country ; they hunted and fished, destroying 

 first the wild animals, then the birds, and finally the fish, 

 till in many places these ceased utterly from off the face 

 of the earth ; and then, when they had finished their 

 work, that race of gentlemen moved west to renew the 

 same course of destruction. After them came the re- 

 storers ; they manured the land, left it fallow, put in 

 practice the rotation of crops, planted shade and fruit 

 trees, discovered that birds were useful in destroying 

 insects and worms, passed laws to protect them where 

 they were not utterly extinct, as with the pinnated 

 grouse, of Pennsylvania and Long Island, and will, 

 I predict, ere long re-stock the streams, rivers and 



