GROWING THE LARGE TROUT. 25 I 



than you like. Giving notice that one is charged will 

 answer the purpose. 



Secondly, a copy of the statute in regard to poach- 

 ing is placed where all can read it. This has a good 

 effect, for a quiet contemplation of six months' im- 

 prisonment, as the penalty is in New Hampshire, or 

 $ ioo fine, as it is in some other places, is a serious 

 damper on the ardor of at least some minds possessed 

 of poaching proclivities. 



Thirdly, a tight board fence eight feet high (and it 

 should be higher), closely spiked at the top, surrounds 

 the ponds of large trout This, it is true, will not 

 prevent a resolute thief from climbing over and getting 

 the fish, if he has made up his mind that he will have 

 them, but it nevertheless reduces the number very 

 much of the dangerous ones, and limits them to the 

 very enterprising only. There are a hundred poachers 

 who will steal up and throw their lines into an open 

 pond, where there is one who will bring a ladder and 

 scale a spiked fence and descend on the other side, 

 where he does not know how many spring guns, or bull- 

 dogs, or what not, there may be inside to receive him. 

 A spiked enclosure lessens the chances of loss by 

 poaching very much. 



Fourthly, there is at the Cold Spring Trout Ponds 

 a dog whose ferocity I have never seen surpassed 

 except in a chained tiger (one of Van Amburgh's) 

 at a menagerie I once visited, and who is as stanch 

 and as incorruptible as he is ferocious. This dog 

 " Jack " is the last thing in the world a poacher would 

 like to encounter in a spiked enclosure, and adds very 



