184 THE NEW ART OF BREEDING FISH. 



pense in watching and preserving their waters, and 

 yet derive no pecuniary advantage from their care 

 and expenditure. This is manifestly unjust, and this 

 injustice is the main cause of the diminution in the 

 numbers of salmon. Unless the breeding-grounds 

 are superintended with great care and vigilance, the 

 only .source of supply is cut off. As the salmon di- 

 minishes in numbers, the owners and lessees of fish- 

 eries are compelled to use greater diligence to capture 

 the few that present themselves, and these two causes 

 continue to operate in a gradually increasing ratio, 

 until the breed must and will become extinct, unless 

 some prompt and efficient remedy be adopted. 



What, then, is the remedy ? Simply this : give 

 every proprietor of land on the banks of a salmon 

 river, a legal right to a participation in the profits 

 of the fisheries. Ofier him every inducement, by that 

 most influential and seductive of all motives, self- 

 interest, to become a breeder and preserver of sal- 

 mon. By the same agency, you deprive him of every 

 motive to kill unseasonable fish, or destroy their ova. 

 He has a claim to this participation by natural and 

 undoubted right, and, until this concession is made 

 to him, all other projects must and will fail. Pro- 

 perty has its rights as well as its duties, and it is one 

 of the rights of property, that he who breeds the fish, 

 and feeds the young, until they are strong enough to 

 migrate to the ocean, ought to share in any profit to 

 be derived from the capture of these fish, on their 

 return to the river. To deny this proposition, would 



