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THE SALMON SUPPLY OF 1872. 



The following table is offered as a guide to the salmon 

 productiveness of the different divisions of the three kingdoms : 

 it has been courteously furnished by Messrs. Wm. Forbes Stuart 

 and Co., of 104 Lower Thames Street, London, and shows the 

 quantity of salmon (i.e. the number of boxes weighing one 

 hundred and twelve pounds each) sent to London in 1872 : — 



Deliveries or Salmon at Billingsgate Market during 1872. 



[At the time this work is going through the press it is impossible to 

 ohtain the returns for 1873, but that they will be large is certain, and 

 that the iish will be far above the average in weight has already been 

 ascertained ; fish above thirty pounds weight having been quite common. 

 As an additional index to the take of 1873, Mr. John Anderson, the lessee 

 of tbe Firth of Forth fisheries, tells me he took fourteen hundred salmon 

 and grilse in the last eight days of his season, and as he ceased to cap- 

 ture per force of the Act of Parliament, the fish were coming up the 

 water in large quantities. Mr. Anderson predicts that in a year or 

 two fifty and sixty pound salmon will be quite common ; and he does not 

 despair of some day showing us a fish that shall weigh a hundred 

 pounds !] 



One of the least understood, although one of the most hotly- 

 contested parts of the salmon question, is the relation between 

 upper and lower proprietor's. A great salmon river may 

 pass through the estates or mark the property boundaries of a 

 number of gentlemen'; and portions of this river are sure 

 to be much more valuable than others. As has been already 

 stated, some of the proprietors on the river Tay derive a large 

 revenue from their fisheries ; while others only obtain a little 

 angling, although they very likely furnish the breeding-ground 

 for the thousands of fish which aid in producing the large rentals 

 lower down. This part of the salmon question has been well 

 argued by Mr. Donald Bain, a gentleman who understood the 



