of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 
13 
ground. There are about 30 miles of river and several lochs above the 
junction of the Arrow and the Owell. 
The hatchery near the mouth of the Ballisodare River is not of the 
most modern and approved construction, and the river water which they 
use is by no means perfectly pure. It is capable of hatching out nearly 
100,000 salmon fry annually. I was informed that for some time past 
they have been getting salmon ova from the Khine, with the view of in- 
creasing the size of the Ballisodare salmon, and that the consequence lias 
been a considerable increase in the average annual weight of the fish 
captured. I saw a number of salmon in the icehouse. They were very 
handsome fish, and a good many of them were over 20 lbs. 
It is somewhat remarkable that though both the Sligo River and the 
Ballisodare discharge their waters into Sligo Bay within a few miles of 
each other, the former is a very early and the latter a decidedly late 
river. The Sligo, which flows out of Loch Gill, a large and beautiful 
lake, with richly wooded banks and numerous islands, is one of the 
earliest salmon rivers in the United Kingdom. It opens for netting on 
the 1st January ; and, from the information I received upon the spot, it 
appeared that, even at that early date, the salmon are in excellent 
condition. 
In the Ballisodare River, on the other hand, the first clean salmon 
do not make their appearance until the month of March, and the 
chief run of fish is in July, at which period the grilse and sea trout 
ascend. 
The Fishery Board have obtained working drawings of the Ballisodare 
ladders, copies of which will be found at the end of their Report. 
But the Ballisodare is not the only river in Ireland where a great The Galv 
fishery has been developed by individual energy and enterprise. The late j^™ e °g" 
Mr Thomas Ashworth, though he did not create an entirely new fishery 
like Mr Cooper on the Ballisodare, enormously increased the value of an 
existing fishery by means of salmon-ladders in connection with the 
Galway River. That river drains Loch Corrib and Loch Mask, two spaci- 
ous expanses of water, the former upwards of 20 and the latter 10 miles 
long. The river has but a short course from Loch Corrib to where it joins 
the sea below the Town of Galway. But Mr Ashworth, at an expense of 
=£2000, connected Loch Corrib and Loch Mask, by means of salmon-ladders 
on the Cong river, and thus opened up a vast extent of breeding ground 
which was carefully protected by a strong force of river-watchers. And, 
in an account which he published, he shows how the yield of the fishery 
gradually but steadily increased until, from 1603 salmon and grilse in 
1853, it had risen annually to no fewer than 20,512, or more than a ten- 
fold increase in 12 years. The following are the figures for these 12 years : — 
Years. 
Number of 
Salmon caught. 
Years. 
Number of 
Salmon caught. 
1853 
1,663 
1859 
9,249 
1854 
3,158 
1860 
3,177 
1855 
5,540 
1861 
11,051 
1856 
5,371 
1862 
15,431 
1857 
4,857 
1863 
17,995 
1858 
9,639 
1864 
20,512 
Mr Ashworth calculates that the number of salmon that ascend the 
ladder every year is not less than 40,000. The ladder is 47 feet in length 
and 9| feet in width. The gradient is 1 in 9, and a narrow channel about 
2 feet wide and 2 feet deep, cut in the obstruction, supplies the ladder 
with water. The transverse steps in the ladder are formed of masonry, a 
