of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



131 



factories of various kinds at Kilmarnock and the town sewage, 

 which are allowed to flow into its tributary, the Kilmarnock water. 

 Yet, on the seashore, only 7 miles distant, in a straight line from 

 Kilmarnock, there is a long stretch of waste land along the curve 

 of Irvine Bay which might be rendered fertile and productive if 

 the town sewage of Kilmarnock, which at present poisons the river, 

 were conducted to it. The examples of Edinburgh, Croydon, 

 Birmingham, and many other towns, show how town sewage can 

 be utilised and made profitable, wherever there is waste land in 

 the neighbourhood ; and, in such cases, there seems to be but little 

 excuse for using it to convert what were once productive salmon 

 rivers into open sewers, where scarcely a fish can live. 



The Garnock. 



The Garnock rises from the Mistylaw Hill, on the borders 

 of Ayrshire and Renfrewshire, aDd falls into the sea close to 

 the town of Irvine. In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account 

 of Scotland, which was published in the last decade of the 18th 

 century, it is stated that the Lugton, the chief tributary of the 

 Garnock, which joins it about a mile below Eglinton Castle, con- 

 tains plenty of ' very fine trout ; ' and of the Garnock it is stated 

 that it is well stored with salmon, and with different kinds of fine 

 trout. This, however, is no longer the case. Pollutions, poaching, 

 and general neglect, have made the Garnock almost salmonless. 

 There is no District Board for the Irvine and Garnock. There can 

 be no doubt that the Ayr, Irvine, and Garnock once contained 

 abundance of salmon, grilse, and sea-trout ; and they might pro- 

 bably be made to do so again, provided they were properly protected ; 

 fixed nets withdrawn to a greater distance from their mouths ; 

 dam-dikes made easily passable for ascending fish ; pollutions 

 prevented or abated; and no fishing, except by rod and line, 

 allowed in the fresh water for the next 10 years. 



From what has been above stated, it will be observed that there 

 is only one District Board — that of the Girvan — for the six Ayrshire 

 rivers. One important and unfortunate result of this is, that no 

 assessments are imposed for the protection of the rivers in which 

 all the salmon are bred ; and that the fixed nets on the sea-coast, 

 which get the lion's share of the fishings, pay nothing — or at least 

 are not obliged to pay anything — for their preservation and 

 improvement. Whereas, in a fishery district, like that of the 

 Annan for example, where there is a District Board, and where — 

 as in Ayrshire — by far the most valuable fishings are those arising 

 from fixed nets, these nets have had to pay, for many years past, 

 a yearly assessment imposed by the Board of 4s. per £1, for the 

 protection of the fishings. 



A number of the sea-fishings on the Ayrshire coast belong to the 



