16 BEST'S ART OF ANGLING. 



neat. The meat thrown into the water, without 

 other trouble, will be picked up by the fishes, and 

 nothing be lost : yet there are several devices for 

 giving them food, especially peas ; as a square 

 board let down with the peas upon it. 



Where fishes are fed in large pools or ponds, 

 when their numbers are great, malt boiled, or 

 fresh grains, is the best food. Thus carp maybe 

 fed and raised like capons, and tenches will feed 

 as well; but perches are not for a stew in feeding 

 time. 



As to the benefits that redound from keeping 

 fish, besides furnishing the table and raising mo- 

 ney, your land will be improved, so as to be really 

 worth and yield more this way than by any other 

 employ whatsoever : for suppose a meadow of 

 two pounds per acre ; four acres in pond will 

 return every year a thousand fed carps, from the 

 least size to fourteen or fifteen inches long, be- 

 sides pikes, perches, tenches, and other fry. The 

 carps are saleable, and will bring sixpence, nine- 

 pence, and perhaps one shilling each, amounting 

 in all to twenty-five pounds, which is six pounds 

 five shillings per acre. 



You should make choice of such a place for 

 your pond, that it may be refreshed with a little 

 rill, or with rain water running or falling into it ; 

 by so doing fish are both more inclined to breed, 

 and are refreshed and fed the better. 



There are many circumstances that conduce 

 much to the feeding of pikes, perches, chubs, 

 carps, roaches, daces, and breams, particularly 

 conveniency of harbour ; for those fish that lie 

 amongst weeds and boggy places are the fattest^ 

 though not the sweetest. In these kind of places 

 they are secured from the assaults of their nume- 



