INTRODUCTION. 1 1 



Selecting the Water. 



The first thing to do, in getting ready to raise trout, 

 is to find suitable water. This is a very important 

 part of your preparations, for it is the element that 

 your trout are to spend their lives in ; and if there is 

 anything wrong about the water, it will sooner or later 

 show itself in fatal results. 



In looking for suitable water, the following precau- 

 tions should in no instance be overlooked. 



i. Be sure that there will always be water enough 

 for your purposes. To decide upon this, you must be 

 guided by the amount of water flowing in the hottest 

 week of the dryest time in the summer. 



This is your guide : the stream or spring is worth 

 no more than what it will do at its very warmest and 

 lowest time. It seems like reflecting on the reader's 

 intelligence to insist on this precaution, yet thousands 

 and thousands of fish have been lost by neglecting it.* 



Great care ought to be exercised to guard against 

 being misled by deceptive appearances. 



When you see a brook sweeping along in the spring 

 at its flood height, it is extremely difficult to realize 

 that the swollen stream can become, as it often does, 

 a dry or nearly dry channel. Therefore, when you 

 select your brook, either see it yourself in its dryest 

 state, or take the testimony of some perfectly reliable 



* I once received a letter from a man who wanted to know 

 " what kind of fish he could raise in a brook which was quite 

 large eight months in the year, and dried up wholly during the 

 other four." 



