A Historical Sketch of Fish-culture. 
9 1 
These mediaeval fish-ponds of England were owned alike 
by the aristocracy and yeomanry. They were of both fresh 
and salt water, and some of them were very large and fine. 
As to their management, there does not seem to have been 
any regular system of culture: the fish were allowed to 
spawn naturally", bushes or willow faggots being thrown 
into the water for them to deposit their eggs upon. The 
ponds were drained in rotation every fifth year or so, and 
grass for herbivorous fish, as the carp, allowed to grow in 
their beds: next year they were re-filled and stocked with 
breeding fish, which were removed as soon as their spawning 
was over, the young fish being left to hatch and grow by 
themselves. The carp (Cyprinus carpio), not a native of Eng¬ 
land but of Asiatic origin, seems to have been introduced 
into England during the latter half of the XV Century, 
and is mentioned by Dame Juliana Berners, Prioress of 
Sopwell Nunnery, in her “Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an 
Angle” in the “ Boke of St. Albans” in 1496, as “a 
daynteous fysshe, but there ben but few in Englonde. ” 
It had been cultivated in Austria as early as 1227, and in 
Germany and France as early as 1258, and is even yet 
known as the “German, carp.” 
There were laws for the protection of the fisheries, and 
Holinshed, writing about 1575, says that it was unlawful 
to capture salmon in the large rivers from the end of Sep¬ 
tember to the middle of November, while salmon-fry were 
protected from mid-April to midsummer. Sussex was the 
leading shire in this culture. Its ponds dated from Roman 
times, and the largest and best among them were those at 
Arundel Castle. Salmon seem to have been first landlocked 
at Arundel in 1430, a simple process being used by which 
they were kept in season the year round. (This process 
at length became obsolete, but is said to have been revived 
in England in 1870. Perhaps it might be useful in this 
country and might solve the question of landlocking the 
quinnat in the Eastern States, at least on a small scale.) 
In Scotland there do not seem to have been many fish- 
