OUR INLAND FISHERIES. 17 



fresh salmon was thus, for want of outlet for the sale, 

 frequently sold at as low a price as l^d. and 2d. per 

 pound ;^ and therefore the over-abundance in these 

 particular districts, and the scarcity which exists 

 there at all times now, is no fair criterion of the 

 actual decrease of production. But while allowing all 

 due weight to so reasonable a view of the case, we 

 are fortunately enabled to set the point at rest by 

 the irrefragable testimony of statistics. Statistics of 

 the produce of various rivers have been kept for a 

 long series of years, and we constantly find that some 

 rivers have fallen to less than half of their former 

 productiveness ; in others salmon have been almost 

 or quite extinguished ; and others, again, have suffered 

 in various degrees. The great cause of this decrease 

 is in every instance (save where mines and factories 

 have utterly poisoned the rivers) the same, viz. that 

 the stock is too reduced, a sufficient amoimt of breed- 

 ing fish not being allowed to deposit their spawn 

 in the rivers to keep up the stock. 



Now, the general reader may understand the case 

 if we put it thus : — Let us suppose a farmer to have 

 a farm capable of supporting a thousand sheep. Let 



1 During the present Beason good salmon has been sold at 

 Billingsgate at as low as S^d. a pound. These fish, however, came 

 from Norway. 



C 



