FISH CULTURE. 15 



in the summer time ; back from the din and whirl of busy 

 cities ; back to the peaceful hearths of our quiet home- 

 steads, where, upon the altars of their fathers' homes, 

 they renew again the covenants of love and brotherhood. 

 Surely, in even this workaday world,' this is worth some- 

 thing. 



It would seem that, in view of the preservation and 

 perpetuation, ownership might be the most effectual 

 means. While trout are, in some sense, everybody's 

 property, no one is especially interested in their preserva- 

 tion. If a hunter falls in with a flock of wild turkeys, 

 he will shoot if he can every one — not leaving a single 

 hen or gobbler, and this whether he needs them or not, 

 whether he can eat them or not — in part from that 

 inherent love of slaughter which taints our blood — in part 

 from the vanity of killing largely of game. From what- 

 ever cause he kills them all. Now, if he owned the lock, 

 whether he loved roast turkey or not, he would kill them 

 as they came into condition, and would be sure to save a 

 gobbler and a hen or two. It would hardly be wise 

 legislation, having in view the largest production of 

 mutton, to declare all sheep feree naturae — wild animals, as 

 the law now holds trout and other fish to be. Rather 

 legislation should seek to confirm ownership, and provide 

 severe penalties for killing anybody's sheep except one's 

 own. That which seems to be wisdom in the one case 

 may probably be wisdom in the other. At all events, the 

 present laws for the preservation of trout are wholly 

 inadequate. For, as nobody owns them, there is no sense 

 of wrong doing in destroying them in the juvenile mind. 

 And I need not remind my hearers that it is somewhat 



