EXTENSION OF PISCICULTURE. 91 



for artificial breeding, for, having a high money value as an 

 animal, it is clear that salmon-culture would in time become as 

 good a way of making money as cattle-feeding or sheep- 

 learing. 



There are waste places in England — the Essex marshes, for 

 instance, or the fens of Norfolk — where it would be profitable to 

 cultivate eels or other fish after the manner of the inhabitants 

 of Comacchio. The English people are fond of eels, and would 

 be able to consume any quantity that might be oflfered for sale, 

 and the place being in such close proximity to the Thames, other 

 fish might be cultivated as well. All the best portions of the 

 hydraulic apparatus of Comacchio might be imitated, and to suit 

 the locality, such other portions as might be required could be 

 invented. The art of pisciculture is but in its infancy, and we 

 may all live in the hope of seeing great water farms — ^to be 

 profitable, they must be gigantic — for the cultivation of fish, in 

 the same sense as we have extensive grazing or feeding farms 

 for the breeding and rearing of cattle. 



In Ireland, the late Mr. Thomas Ashworth, of the Galway 

 fisheries, found it as profitable and as easy to breed salmon as it 

 is to rear sheep. His fisheries became a decided success ; and, 

 if we except the cost of some extensive engineering operations 

 in forming fish-passes to admit of a commimication with the sea, 

 the cost of his experiments was trifling and the returns ex- 

 ceptionally large. 



Grave doubts at one time prevailed among persons interested 

 in acclimatisation and pisciculture as to whether or not it would 

 be possible to introduce the British salmon into the waters of 

 Australia; and an interesting controversy was about twelve years 

 ago carried on in various journals as to the best way of taking 

 out the fish to that country. Those very wise people who never 

 do anything, but are largely endowed with the gift of prophecy, 

 at once proclaimed that it could not be done ; that it was 

 impossible to take the salmon out to Australia, etc. etc. But 

 happily for the cause of progress in natural science, and the suc- 

 cess of that particular experiment, there were men who had 

 resolved to cany it out, and who would not be put down. Mr. 

 Francis Francis, Mr. Frank Buckland, and Mr. J. A. Youl, took 

 a leading part in the achievement ; but before they fell upon 

 their successful plan of taking out the ova in ice, hot discussions 

 had ensued as to how the salmon could be introduced into the 

 rivers of the Australian continent. Many plans were suggested: 



