PONDS. 19 



liability to sediment, or intractable character, or other 

 causes, be extremely unsuitable for hatching. In 

 locating your ponds, then, these three departments 

 should be kept distinct in the mind ; and it should be 

 remembered that the works belonging to each should 

 be so built in reference to their distinctive require- 

 ments, and also with reference to each other, that, 

 when they are finished, each will have its proper water 

 advantages, the precedence, when there is choice of 

 water, being always given to the first two named, 

 the hatching apparatus and the nursery. Nature has 

 done so much in some trout-pond localities that very 

 little foresight is required in this respect ; but in many, 

 especially where the water has to be used over once 

 or twice, the exercise of considerable forethought will 

 be well repaid. 



2. Get your ponds, whenever you can without great 

 inconvenience, either wholly or partly by excavating 

 the earth, rather than by damming up the stream. 

 This is for safety ; with the bulk of the water above 

 the level of the adjacent land, you are never secure. 

 I never saw a trout-pond dam in my life that I con- 

 sidered absolutely safe. 



Recollect that muskrats, frost, and decay are the 

 active enemies of your pond walls, and their work is 

 correspondingly mischievous in the degree that the 

 ponds are raised above the level of the surrounding 

 land. As I said, I never saw a trout-pond dam that 

 was safe to hold trout in ; but I have seen more un- 

 safe ones than I can think of, that sooner or later led 

 to disastrous losses by breaking away and letting out 



