104 



It is unnecessary to magnify the importance of this fish 

 as an economic production, or as an article of commeice. 

 As food it is beyond comparison the most valuable of fresh 

 ■water fish, both on account of the delicacy of its flavor, and 

 the numbers in which it can be supplied. By prudence, a 

 little exertion, and a very small expense now, it may not 

 only be rendered cheap and accessible to almost every fami- 

 ly in Canada, but also an article of no small commercial 

 importance as an export to the United States, in which 

 country, by pursuing the course which Canada has hither- 

 to imitated, this noble fish has been almost exterminated. 

 Twenty-iive or thirty years ago every stream tributary to 

 the St. Lawrence, from Niagara to Labrador on the north 

 side, and to Gaspe basin on the south, abounded with sal- 

 mon. At the present moment, with the exceptionof a few 

 in the Jacques Cartier, there is not one to be found in any 

 liver between the Falls of Niagara and the city of Quebec. 

 This deplorable decrease in natural production of great va- 

 lue has arisen from two causes ; 1st — the natural disposi- 

 tion of uncivilized man to destroy at all times and at all 

 seasons whatever has life and is fit for food ; and 2nd — 

 the neglect of those persons who have constructed mill- 

 dams, to attach to them slides, or chutes, by ascending 

 which the fish could pass onwards to their spawning beds 

 in the interior. It is supposed by many that dust from the 

 sawmills getting into the gills of the salmon prevents them 

 from respiratiiig freely, and so banishes them from the 

 streams on which such mills are situated, but I am per- 

 suaded that this is a mistake, for salmon are found in con- 

 siderable numbers at the mouths of many such streams, 

 below the dams. In the Marguerite, in the Saguenay, at 



