190 FISH CULTURE. 



Ponds cannot be kept too clean, and no more weed 

 should be permitted to accumulate in them than is 

 just sufficient for shelter and the production of food 

 for the fish. The monks, from the necessity for fish 

 diet caused by their fasts, understood the management 

 of fisheries, particularly of inland fisheries, ponds, 

 and stews, &c., infinitely better than we do. Indeed, 

 many of the old fish-ponds, particularly where they 

 are found in succession, communicating with each 

 other, are due to their skill and intelligence, and in 

 the majority of instances where these existed, hard 

 by stood formerly some monastic institution. The 

 best specimen of this arrangement for fish culture 

 which I have ever chanced to see, is at Stanton 

 Harcourt, near Witney, in Oxon. There the ponds 

 are constructed in two separate series, crossing each 

 other at right angles. There is one large stock 

 pond several acres in extent, communicating with 

 two other ponds in succession, and across these run 

 about seven or eight other ponds of smaller size, 

 each discharging into the other. One of them is, 

 curiously enough, fashioned like a rude cross, having, 

 possibly, some significance with respect to the re- 

 ligious purposes they were contrived in aid of. The 

 large pond I suppose to be the stock pond, and 

 these smaller ponds were no doubt succession ponds 



