190 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



ponds, so called. Great ponds by our statutes are declared 

 to be natural ponds which are over twenty acres in extent. 

 Now, in such ponds and in places where the tide ebbs and 

 flows, the public has the right to fish, but no one has the 

 right to go across another's land to get to a great pond for 

 the purpose of fishing. But the right even of the riparian 

 owner to fish in navigable streams may be limited by statute, 

 as has been held in Massachusetts under the statute of 1869, 

 which forbids the taking of certain fish at their spawning 

 season. It was claimed, in a case tried in 1871, that this 

 law had no binding eftect upon riparian proprietors, on the 

 ground that it was unconstitutional ; l)ut this contention was 

 overruled, the court taking the ground that the right of fish- 

 ery by rijjarian owners might be to some extent qualified by 

 legislation, the Legislature having the right to prevent the 

 extermination of migratory fish as well as of useful birds 

 and animals, by forbidding the taking of them at all times 

 when such act would interfere with their breeding and mul- 

 tiplication. 



The riparian owner, though he may fish in a stream, may 

 not block it so that fish cannot pass. The owner of a dam 

 where migratory fish are accustomed to pass must provide 

 a way for their passage. This has become the well-estab- 

 lished law of the State, under the statutes and numerous 

 decisions which have followed construing those statutes. 



The rights of riparian owners have been limited by stat- 

 ute as to the time and methods of fishing. These provisions 

 are numerous, and to undertake to state the special provi- 

 sions would far exceed the proper limits of a paper of this 

 nature. One curious case may be mentioned, in which the 

 defendant was convicted and punished for netting trout, 

 though it was on his own land, and though he himself had 



raised the trout. 



Ice. 



A brief statement in regard to the law affecting the cutting 

 of ice naturally connects itself with the subject of fishing. 

 In the case of Rowell v. Do3de, the lessee of an ice house 

 and land on the borders of a great pond cleared the ice so 

 that it miffht freeze to greater thickness. The defendant 

 cut holes in the ice, and fished there. It was held that he 



