1862. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



457 



All this may be true, yet I am unable to see 

 that the hinge does any harm upon smooth land, 

 while in case the ground is rocky, inclined or 

 rough, all danger to the driver may be obviated, 

 by simply walking behind the mower, as it will do 

 just as nice work one way as the other. The hinge 

 is an improvement in moving the machine from 

 place to place, as many times one wishes to go 

 through narrow places, where there would not be 

 sufficient space to pass with the finger-bar run- 

 ning out four feet, horizontally, to the right — 

 while with the hinge, the finger-bar can be brought 

 into a perpendicular position, making the machine 

 occupy less space in passing than a common 

 wagon, which is convenient under many circum- 

 stances. While my bi'other farmers would choose 

 the stiff finger-bar, I would put in my testimony in 

 favor of the hinge or joint in the same. 



Calais, Vt., Aug., 18G2. c. C. E. 



I^or the Neie England Farmer. 

 FISH AND FISH-BREEDING. 



Having passed a few days of my summer vaca- 

 tion from business, in wading up and down the 

 cold, clear streams of the White Mountains, en- 

 ticing, by all sorts of deceitful contrivances, the 

 beautiful trout from their shady retreats under the 

 dark rocks, and having had success sufficient to 

 supply the table, so that I have pretty satisfactory 

 notions of the value of that kind of food, it is nat- 

 ural that my thoughts should still linger upon the 

 subject. Once, in Switzerland, near the moun- 

 tains, where I spent a Sabbath, our party were 

 asked if we should like some trout for dinner, and 

 upon our affirmative reply, a girl of the house 

 went down to a spring where was a cask, from 

 which she took living trout sufficient for our sup- 

 ply. We were told that these were fish recently 

 taken from the streams and kept alive for occa- 

 sional use. 



Now, what a luxury would it be in the country, 

 where a variety of food is not always to be had, if 

 we could go to our fish-pond, as we go to our 

 poultry-yard, and take out a goodly dish for our 

 family or newly arrived friend. 



FAILURE OF FISH IN OUR STREAMS. 



In old times, all our rivers and small streams 

 abounded in fish. Salmon, and shad, and alewives, 

 at certain seasons, filled the waters in such quan- 

 tity as fully to supply the wants of all the inhabi- 

 tants along the banks. Old men away up in Ha- 

 verhill and Bath, in New Hampshire, point out 

 the salmon holes in the Connecticut River, hun- 

 dreds of miles from the sea. Now, although the 

 Colonial governments took great care to provide 

 fish-ways in the dams which they allowed to be 

 erected, and although the statute books of most 

 of the States abound in provisions for the preser- 

 vation of fish, yet our principal streams are so for 

 cleared of them, as scarcely to afford sport to the 



angler, much less any reliable supply of food to 

 the citizen. 



The principal reason why the salmon has dis- 

 appeared from our streams, is the obstruction by 

 dams. The salmon and trout species run far back 

 into the cold mountain streams to deposit their 

 spawn, where it may hatch, at the proper season, 

 and where the young fry may be safe from the 

 jaws of the larger fish, which generally have no 

 particular scruples about devouring their own 

 children, if they come in their way. As the coun- 

 try becomes settled and cleared of wood, too, the 

 streams become far more irregular. Drainage of 

 land for agriculture, and the removal of small ob- 

 structions in the brooks, tend to carry the water 

 off more rapidly after gi-eat rains, thus causing 

 freshets, followed by droughts which are aided by 

 the greater evaporation consequent upon letting in 

 the sun where the stream was formerly shaded. 

 These alternate floods and droughts break up the 

 breeding places of the fish, destroy their spawn, 

 and often the young fish are left to perish for want 

 of water in their once perennial streams. 



We may moui-n over the lost sport, and lost 

 supply of food from our streams, but neither 

 mourning, nor indeed any endeavor of ours, can 

 restore them. Severe legislation, which would, 

 perhaps, too much have impeded manufactures, 

 might have preserved them longer, but public sen- 

 timent, embittered by tradition of English game 

 laws, has, in this country, little sympathy with 

 laws for preserving bird, or beast, or fish. By the 

 common law, and by early colonial statutes, the 

 large streams, the bays and large ponds, were, in 

 Massachusetts, made common to all for fishing 

 and fowling. This is in accordance with our ideas 

 of equality, and is far better than the odious priv- 

 ileges and monopolies enjoyed by the higher class- 

 es in other lands. 



FISH-BREEDING IN PONDS. 



Although we have lost our fish, mostly, from 

 our public ponds and sti'eams, we may, many of 

 us, with little trouble or cost, supply ourselves 

 and neighbors through the use of private fish- 

 ponds, either natural or artificial. Neither law 

 nor good neighborhood gives any excuse for in- 

 terference with small ponds upon one's own land. 

 The land-owner is as exclusively owner of his 

 pond, as of his barn, and his fish are as securely 

 protected as his cattle. 



There is not room in a single article, to do much 

 more than give some general hints, showing the 

 principles to be regarded in fish-breeding, j,nd re- 

 ferring to some instances of successful experiment. 

 In Germany, about a hundred years ago, one Ja- 

 cobi published some interesting accounts of his 

 method of breeding trout by artificial impregna- 

 tion of their ova or eggs. 



