132 
THE CALIFORNIAN SALMON. 
the deer and other wild game, it would no doubt soon dis- 
appear altogether unless protected by wise legislation. 
In a work entitled “ The Salmon,” by Mr. Alexander 
Eussell, it is stated that the annual value of three Scotch 
fishery districts, “ the Tay, the Spey, and the twin rivers 
entering the sea at Aberdeen, amounts to nearly £40,000, 
and from the reports of the Irish Commissioners we learn 
that in 1862 three Irish railways conreyed 900,000 lbs. of 
salmon, being equal in weight and treble in value to 15,000 
sheep. In Scotland, the Tay alone furnishes annually 
about 800,000 lbs., being equal in weight and treble in value 
to 13,000 sheep. The weight of salmon produced by the 
Spey is equal to the weight of mutton annually yielded to 
the butcher by each of several of the smaller counties.” 
According to the same authority the value of the Irish 
fisheries has been stated semi-officially at £200,000 a year. 
In Britain a salmon fishery is as saleable a property as 
houses or land, and is often held by as ancient a title. 
The fisheries of the Duke of Eichmond on the Spey are 
worth about £13,000 annually, and the right to fish in a 
river often lets for a larger rental, than that of a consider- 
able extent of land on each of its banks. 
In the Oregon territory of the Dnited States, the 
produce of the fisheries is worth seven or eight hundred 
thousand pounds annually, and in 1875, sixteen millions of 
of pounds of tinned fish, were prepared for exportation. 
The exports of preserved salmon from the Columbia river 
and its tributaries in 1877, were so much increased as to 
be estimated at a value of a million sterling. 
It is evident, therefore, that if the experiment of intro- 
ducing the salmon into Australian waters should prove 
successful, very valuable pecuniary results may follow in a 
not very remote future, besides the sport which will be 
afforded, and which is not the least of the advantages to be 
