232 PROPAGATION OF FISH. 



should be unwilling to adopt the simplest legislation to 

 preserve, foster and protect our other fishing interests. 

 Cod are not generally considered equal to salmon or 

 trout, and although at present more numerous, a few 

 years of culture might bring the latter extensively into 

 competition. I am not in a position to give statistics, 

 but the salmon that are sold in our markets fresh and 

 smoked, to say nothing of tftat which is pickled, must 

 amount to millions annually. !N"o one single subject is 

 so important and so capable of adding to the wealth of 

 our country as the re-stocking our rivers with then- 

 natural inhabitants. 



There is a very erroneous impression, encouraged, too, 

 it is shame to say, by Smith, in his work on the fish of 

 Massachusetts, that the wild creatures of the woods and 

 waters must, in the nature of things, disappear before 

 man. Now, although this is a lamentable fact, it is not 

 a necessary consequence, and there is nothing in man's 

 capturing fish or killing game, properly and reasonably, 

 that will seriously diminish their numbers.' Fish and 

 birds prey on one another ; for every large trout a man 

 takes he saves a hundred small ones ; for every hawk he 

 catches hovering over his barnyard, and kills, he saves a 

 hundred quail, and thus, although he kills them himself, 

 he preserves them from vermin, from one another, and 

 from birds of prey. If he will add to this a very little 

 care and protection of the young, he will increase the 

 supply a thousand fold. 



It is calculated that the roe of one shad or cod would 

 stock the world, but that not one egg in a million arrives 

 at maturity. The lowest calculation of the roe of a 



