CHAPTER VIII. 



Insufficiency 

 of natural 

 stock. 



STOCKING. 



HERE are possibly a few owners of 

 water who still cling to the exploded 

 theory that the natural reproduction 

 alone in a river much fished is sufficient to 

 keep up the stock. In other words, they 

 believe that the number of naturally-bred trout 

 which in each season reach maturity will suffice 

 to make up the deficiency caused by the 

 raid of the poachers, whether human, furred, 

 feathered,, or scaled, as well as the number 

 killed by the more legitimate methods of the 

 sportsman. Probably no amount of argument, 

 no careful statistics of figures, no examples of 

 the great benefit accruing to various fisheries 

 from systematic stocking, would make any im- 

 pression upon them. Yet there are undoubtedly 

 among those holding this theory a certain 

 number of proprietors of water who have no 

 desire to sacrifice the fishing in order to save 



