eSf PRACTKIE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



Buspended in such a manner, that they are lifted from the ground by the current of the tide in flowing 

 upward ; so that the fish find no difficulty in passing beneath them into the lake : but, on the tide's turn- 

 ing, their lower edges fall down close to the sand, and effectually prevent the salmon from retreat- 

 ing. They are, in consequence, left dry, or in shallow water, and are easily to be taken, by hundreds, per- 

 haps, at once. 



3897. The other remarkable method, -which is practised in the Frith of Solway, is founded on a well- 

 known habit of salmon, when they first make the land, and enter into narrow seas and estuaries, to keep 

 much along the shore: no matter whether to hit, with greater certainty, their native rivers; to rub off 

 the yer-min with which, in general, they are more or less infested, when they return from the ocean ; or 

 to seek for food. This method of taking salmon, if not a modern invention, has recently been raised to 

 its present degree of perfection, by an enterprising salmon fisher and farmer in the neighbourhood of 

 Annan ; who has turned it to great profit. At a short distance below the mouth of the river Annan, he 

 has run out along line of tall net-fence, several hundred yards in length, and somewhat obliquely from the 

 line of the shore, with which it makes an acute angle, and closes in with it, at the upper end ; thus form- 

 ing, in effect, an artificial lake ; one side of which is the beach, the other the net fence. The lower end 

 is ingeniously guarded, with nets of a more trap like construction than those which are in use for natural 

 lakes ; in which fish are found to lie more quietly, until the turn of the tide. In this immense trap, great 

 quantities, not of salmon only, but of cod, ling, soles, and other white fish are taken. Marshal knows no 

 place in the island where sea fishing, for salmon, can be studied with so much profit as on the shores of 

 Annandale. 



3898. River fishing for salmon is chiefly done with the seine, or long draught net, the construction and 

 use of which are universally known. In rivers liable to frequent and great changes of depth and strength 

 of current, by reason of tides and floods, it is desirable to have nets of different textures, as well as of 

 different depths : as, one of the construction best adapted to the ordinary state of the water, and to the 

 size of the fish that frequent it (salmon peels, trouts, mullets, and other small-sized fish are, in some rivers, 

 commonly taken with salmon) ; and another with more depth, and wider meshes, to be used during high 

 water and strong currents, when the larger salmon do not fail to hasten upward : and the same strength 

 of hands which is able to draw a close net on it, can work a deeper one with wider meshes. In wide 

 riv^s, with flat shores, a variety of nets are required of different lengths as well as depths, to suit every 

 height and width of the water. 



38'J9. In rivers, traps are set for salmon. The most common device of this kind is the weir, or salmon 

 leap; namely, a tall dam run across the river, with a sluice at one end of it, through which the principal 

 part, or the whole, of the river at low water, is suffered to pass with a strong current; and in this sluicfe 

 the trap is set 



39iX). The construction of salmon weirs. Marshal conceives to be, in all cases, dangerous, and in many 

 highly injurious to the propagation of salmon : and although it would be altogether improper to demolish 

 those which long custom has sanctioned, yet he is of opinion that it would be equally improper to suffer 

 more to be erected; at least, until somejudicious regulations are made respecting them ; regulations which 

 cannot be delayed without injury to the public. 



3901. It now only remains to speak of poaching, or the illegal taking of grown salmon. 

 There are already severe penalties inflicted for this crime ; which, compared with that of 

 destroying young salmon, might, in a public light, be deemed venial, the latter deserving 

 tenfold punishment : for the grown salmon taken in season by poachers becomes so 

 much wholesome food ; there is no waste of human sustenance by the practice. Neveri 

 theless, as theft, the crime is great, and ought to be punishable as such. As an improve- 

 ment of the present law, Marshal proposes to make the receiver, in this as in other cases 

 of theft, equally punishable with the thief. If poachers were not encouraged by pur- 

 chasers of stolen salmon, the practice would not be followed. 



3902. Lake fisheries are of small extent, and are chiefly confined to one or two moun- 

 tainous districts ; and, even there, unless where char or trout abound, as in Keswick and 

 Lochlomond, their value is small, and their improvements few. The Lochfine fishery 

 is to be considered as marine, it being in fact an inlet of the sea. 



3903. Pool-fishing is, in most parts, peculiar to the seats of men of fortune, and the 

 country residences of minor gentlemen. Surrey and Berkshire are, perhaps, the only 

 districts in which fish-pools are viewed as an object of rural economy. On every side 

 of the metropolis, something of this kind is observable. But it is on the south side, in 

 adjoining parts of Surrey and Sussex, where the practice of fish-breeding may be said to 

 be established. There fish-pools have been, and still arc, formed with the view of letting 

 them to dealers in carp and other pond fish ; or of stocking them and disposing of the 

 produce as an article of farm stock. In a general view of the kingdom, fish-pools can 

 scarcely be considered as an object worthy of consideration, in the improvement of landed 

 estates : yet there are situations in which they may be formed with profit ; as in the dips 

 and. hollows of extremely bad ground ; especially if waters which are genial to any of the 

 species of pond-fish happen to pass through them, or can be profitably led to them. 

 Even where the water which can be commanded is of an inferior quality, a profitable 

 breeding-pool may be formed to stock ponds of a more fattening nature. Feeding and 

 fattening fish for market is commonly practised in China, and no doubt might be prac- 

 tised in England, with the same ease as fattening pigs. In China, boiled rice, mixed up 

 with the blood of animals, kitchen wash, or any greasy rich fluid of animal ofFal, is the 

 food with which they are fed once or twice a day : they fatten quickly and profitably. 



3904. The cranfish, though most delicious eating, and a native of England, neither 

 abounds in suflRcient quantities to be brought to market nor is reared by individuals. It 

 requires warm rich marshy lands, and a calcareous soil. 



3905. The leech is an amphibious animal of the MoUusca order, common about some 

 of the lakes in the north of England, as Keswick. Fonnerly considerable quantities 

 used to be packed up and sent to London, and other places ; but the market is now chiefly 

 supplied from the Continent. 



