110 



nets can be set, and when they get beyond them, they are 

 comparatively safe in the mountain rivers and lakes which 

 never hear a human footfall till winter — which congeals 

 their surfaces into ice — tempts the poor Indian to tread 

 their banks in pursuit of the bear, the marten, the mink 

 and the otter. 



In well regulated salmon fisheries in Europe, the fish — 

 by the construction of proper weirs and reservoirs — are 

 almost as much under the control of the managers as the 

 sheep on their farms or the fowl in their poultry-yards. 

 They can send such of them as they please to market, 

 permit the fittest for the purpose to pass on to propagate 

 their kind, allow the young to enjoy life till they become 

 mature, and suffer the sick and unhealthy to return to their 

 invigorating pastures in the depths of the ocean. But no 

 portion of this system is practised in our American rivers. 

 There is not a salmon weir in the province ; and the conse- 

 quence is, that young and old, kelt and grilse, worthless 

 and unwholesome, the fish are killed by the undiscriminat- 

 ing net and the cruel spear. 



It appears to me that the Hudson's Bay Company set 

 little value on these fisheries, and maintain them merely as 

 an accident appertaining to the fur trade which is far more 

 profitable. The approachingtermination of their lease and 

 the consequent uncertainty of their tenure may perhaps 

 appear a suflioient reason for their not incurring the expense 

 of erecting weirs, by which much more profit could be 

 made of their fisheries. Unproductive and wasteful as their 

 mode of fishing is, the protection the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany affords, is the only present safeguard for the existence of 

 Salmon in Canada. I am persuaded that were ihatprotec 



