CHAP..XX. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 221 



CHAP. XX. 



Of FISH-PONDS, and how to order them. 



DOCTOR LEBAULT, the learned Frenchman, in his 

 large discourse of Maison Rustique, gives this direction 

 for making of fish-ponds. I shall refer you to him, to 

 read it at large : but I think I shall contract it, and yet 

 make it as useful. 1 



He adviseth, that when you have drained the ground, 

 and made the earth firm where the head of the pond must 

 be, that you must then, in that place, drive in two or three 

 rows of oak or elm piles, which should be scorched in the 

 fire, or half-burnt, before they be driven into the earth ; 

 for being thus used, it preserves them much longer from 

 rotting. And having done so, lay faggots or bavins of 

 smaller wood betwixt them ; and then earth betwixt amd 

 above them: and then, having first very well rammed 

 them and the earth, use another pile in like manner as the 

 first were : and note, that the second pile is to be of or 

 about the height that you intend to make your sluice or 

 flood-gate, or the vent that you intend shall convey the 

 overflowings of your pond in any flood that shall endan- 

 ger the breaking of the pond-dam. 



Then he advises, that you plant willows or owlers about 

 it, or both ; and then cast in bavins in some places not 

 far from the side, and in the most sandy places, for fish 

 both to spawn upon, and to defend them and the young 

 fry from the many fish, and also from vermin, that lie at 



(1) A translation of this work under the title of " Maison Rustique, or the 

 Country Farme, compiled by Charles Steuens and John Liebault, Doctors of 

 Physicke, and translated into English by Richard Surflet," appeared in quarto, 

 Land. irJOO : and a second edition, with large additions, by Oervase Markham, 

 fol. Lond. 1616. 



