25O DOMESTICATED TROUT. 



With these three classes of poachers about, your trout 

 are never secure. So I would say, make the safety 

 of your ponds just as near a certainty as you can. 

 Do not trust to people's being too honest, or too indo- 

 lent, or too unenterprising to take your trout, for there 

 are dishonesty, cunning, and enterprise enough in the 

 world to steal them twenty times over, and it is 

 more than likely that these qualities exist in the very 

 neighborhood of your ponds. The true plan is to 

 put temptation out of the way of all by interposing 

 impassable barriers between the trout and the thieves ; 

 and as a guide to what may be done, I will give a 

 brief description of the safeguards employed at the 

 Cold Spring Trout Ponds. There is, first, an admis- 

 sion-fee to the grounds, and visitors are required to 

 register their names. This has a good effect in vari- 

 ous ways. It keeps the crowd unfamiliar with the 

 temptation, which is a good deal ; for persons who 

 have never seen the trout in the daytime are much 

 less likely to come for them at night than those who 

 have seen them often. Poachers might say of trout 

 what Pope said of vice, 



When " seen too oft, familiar with its face, 

 We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 



An admittance fee also makes the number of visi- 

 tors so small that any suspicious persons taking obser- 

 vations for a midnight raid are likely to be noticed. 

 At all events, it makes you feel safer than if there 

 were people around your ponds all day that you did 

 not know anything about. Finally, if a fee is objec- 

 tionable to your taste, you need not take it any oftener 



