Essays in Natural History and Agriculture Part 2

Fawkes to take up the matter in 1841, and they were resumed in 1842, and again in 1848 and 1849, both with Salmon and Trout. It was at this period that Ramsbottom came into the field. At Mr.

Fawkes's request I instructed him in the art, and sent him to Farnley, where he was perfectly successful; and since then, I believe he has had more experience and been more successful than any other propagator in the kingdom.

The principle of this system is very easily comprehended; but success depends on many niceties of manipulation, and much experience in judging whether the fish, both male and female, are in the proper condition for operating upon.

This experience is not gained without much practice. This practice Ramsbottom has in great perfection. There is no doubt the artificial breeding of fish will be found exceedingly beneficial, if properly carried out; and I hope to see the time when Salmo Salar may catch half-a-dozen of his namesakes at Whitewell, any good day in the season.

I am, Sir, Yours very truly, THOMAS GARNETT.

ARTIFICIAL BREEDING OF FISH--(CONTINUED).

c.l.i.tHEROE, _9th January_, 1854.

To the Editor of the "Manchester Guardian."

SIR,--As I believe that Salmo Salar is quite as desirous of increasing the breed of Salmon as myself, the controversy between us may be reduced to very narrow limits. He believes that Trout eat very few of the Salmon ova, and therefore cannot do much harm.

I will just mention a few facts which make me think otherwise.

When Ramsbottom was in Galway he caught in one night twenty-five Trout on the sp.a.w.ning ground, which had on the average not less than five hundred ova in each of their stomachs; from one of their throats he squeezed a thousand. As the net would not take a fish of less than two pounds, how many had pa.s.sed through it? When he was at Knowlmere, in sweeping the river for sp.a.w.ning fish he caught nine Par, two Trouts, and a Sprod on the sp.a.w.ning bed, all of which were gorged with Salmon sp.a.w.n; when he went into the brooks there he never found a pair of Trout sp.a.w.ning without also finding a number of smaller fish behind, some of which he caught, and in all such cases found them gorged with roe up to the throat; the male Trout would occasionally drive them off, but as soon as he returned to the female they were again close in the rear.

In the "Perthshire Courier" of the 22nd December is the following statement: The men employed in taking the breeding fish secured a Whitling on Tuesday about three-quarters of a pound, and as they observed Salmon ova coming out of his mouth he was brought to the office of Mr. Buist for examination; on being opened, upwards of three hundred impregnated Salmon ova were taken from his stomach quite undigested. It may be, therefore, fairly presumed, that this youngster had taken this quant.i.ty for his breakfast; if he dined and breakfasted in the same style each day during the breeding season, it is difficult to estimate the expense of his keep. Such is the amount of loss of impregnated roe in one morning from one trifling fish; what must it be throughout the season from the various enemies it has to encounter?

Salmo Salar is facetious about the destruction of the roe by insects, and says, "because an aquatic insect will devour a minnow's egg, which is not as large as a pin's head, we have no right to infer that it will devour that of a Salmon, which is as large as a pea; it would be just as reasonable to suppose that because a wasp feasts upon a cherry, or a strawberry, therefore he will eat a turnip or a mangold wurtzel." As he seems to have made a slip of the pen in naming the two last _fruits_, allow me to supply what I suppose he meant to say, which I presume was that because a wasp eats a cherry or a strawberry, we must not therefore infer that he will either eat a pear or a plum; if that is his meaning, I think I can understand it. If he adheres to his own version, I would merely observe that there is no a.n.a.logy in the two cases. But the inference does not rest upon mere supposition; the freshwater shrimps at Knowlmere were seen devouring the ova in the sp.a.w.ning-boxes. We have seen above that Par eat ova as well as Trout. Let us suppose that the millions of Smolts (as Par) have only one meal each of Salmon roe, and we will stint them to twenty ova apiece. I fear that very few of the five millions which Salmo Salar says are deposited in the Hodder will be left to grow into Salmon. In addition to these, ducks, both wild and tame, eat them greedily. When Ramsbottom was in Galway he saw that the tame ducks frequented the sp.a.w.ning ford, and the superintendent bought one, and found its crop quite full of Salmon roe. If this had been buried eighteen inches in the gravel (as Salmo Salar suggests), the duck would have had some difficulty in extracting it; but so far as my experience goes, it is not usually one-half that depth, although this varies in different rivers.

Then, if one Salmon is able to plough up gravel which is cemented together by sand and long continuance in one place, why should not another be able to do the same when the gravel is loose and easily removed? But there is another enemy whom Salmo Salar has not mentioned, who does more harm than all the rest: that is the poacher, and I fear that many of the Salmon which Salmo Salar saw sp.a.w.ning in the Hodder and its tributaries have since then made a journey overland. At all events, I am credibly informed that in one season a gang of poachers took seventy Salmon in the Hodder.

Is he sure they have taken none this season? Salmo Salar seems to think that one pair of Salmon will not sp.a.w.n on the same ground, which has been previously occupied by another pair; but he has only to watch the same ridd for a week or two to be convinced he is mistaken. As to fish refusing to sp.a.w.n on new gravel, I may state that when Mr. Fawkes was making his experiments at Farnley he put some new gravel into his brook, and there were sixteen pairs of Trout sp.a.w.ning on it the next morning. Salmo Salar says that if he can have those simple checks which he enumerates to the present practices, he will restore abundance of Salmon to the Ribble; they are all very good in their way, but do not go quite far enough, and they would do very little good without a fourth, namely, protection from the poacher for the fish on the sp.a.w.ning beds. Until this can be given more efficiently than it is at present, all the rest will be unavailing; and until the upper proprietors can have a greater interest in the preservation of Salmon than they now have, they cannot be expected to give themselves much trouble on the subject.

My readers would not be much edified by strong a.s.sertion and counter-a.s.sertion of what Trout do, and what they cannot do; nor is it probable that where we differ we should convince each other; neither do I see any occasion for personality, when both parties are actuated by the same motives--a desire to see the Salmon fisheries restored to a state of great prosperity. I therefore avoid noticing some of Salmo Salar's remarks, which seem to me a little tinged with this spirit, and hope we shall be able to act in concert for the attainment of that desirable result. Salmo Salar will find that the number of Smolts is not always determined by the quant.i.ty of ova deposited: if he will examine the bed of the Hodder the next low water, he will find many of the ridds disturbed by the ice floods of yesterday; and if he doubts this, I shall be happy to examine them along with him, if he will give me previous notice of his intention.

Since the above was written I have seen Ramsbottom, who tells me that the stream in the Tay, where he caught the whole of the fish from which he obtained 300,000 to 400,000 ova, was on one side of it one continuous ridd, and that the fish could not avoid ploughing up the gravel which previous fish had sp.a.w.ned in, and at Oughterard, where 300 pairs of fish sp.a.w.ned in the same number of yards, it was the same; and they found thousands of ova buried so deep that they were rotting in great quant.i.ties.

With regard to what Salmo Salar says about the infrequency of a veritable sp.a.w.ning bed being washed away by floods, I refer him to what I have said previously; but Ramsbottom tells me the game- keeper at Harden (Haworth) will be able to give him sufficient proof that in the Langden Brook this has occurred, as he found the ova on the dry land by thousands, which had been left there by the flood.

When Ramsbottom was at Perth he found on one of the fords, a s.p.a.ce of twenty yards long and fourteen yards wide, filled with ridds, which was entirely left dry. What would become of all the sp.a.w.n deposited there?

Salmo Salar seems to think nature is quite sufficient to take care of her own interests without our interference, and that without some counter-acting influence to keep the breed of fish in check, the river would not hold all that would be bred. I quite agree with him in this, provided nature had fair play; but she has not, and occasionally needs a little help: else why do we employ game- keepers to trap cats, foxes, and weasels, to shoot hawks, carrion crows, and magpies, and to breed pheasants, as well as to prevent poaching? If these precautions are unnecessary, why go to such expense? and if they are necessary for hares and birds, may they not be also for fish?

I hope Salmo Salar will investigate what I said about walling in of the Smolts in Langden Brook. I fancy he may have seen these enclosures himself; at all events, I have, and although I cannot prove they were erected for that purpose, I do not doubt the accuracy of my information.

I am, Sir, Yours very truly, THOMAS GARNETT.

The following letter was sent to me from Chester:--

CHESTER, _3rd February_, 1854.

SIR,--We are about to make application to Parliament for a Commission of Inquiry into the state of laws respecting the fisheries of England and Wales. And Mr. Ashworth, of Poynton, has been so good as to refer me to you, as able and willing to furnish us with information on the subject.

The annual meeting of the river Dee fishery a.s.sociation will be held on the 20th instant, when I purpose to lay before them the draft of a pet.i.tion to Parliament for their approval.

I am anxious in the meantime to obtain all the information possible relative to the working of the present laws, their defects, and the alterations to be proposed in them, in order that a condensed statement may be embodied in the pet.i.tion as the ground of our application.

I should be exceedingly obliged for any remarks your experience may suggest, and trust you will accept the cause which dictates my writing as a sufficient apology for troubling you on the subject.

I have had great pleasure in reading your able replies to Salmo Salar's letters. On the appearance of the first, I was strongly prompted to reply to it myself, but rejoiced to find him in much better hands.

I remain, Sir, Yours very truly, WILLIAM AYRTON.

c.l.i.tHEROE, _4th February_, 1854.

TO WM. AYRTON, ESQ.

DEAR SIR,--I am favoured with your letter of yesterday, and shall be glad to give you any information I may possess on the habits of Salmon, or the requirements of any act of Parliament necessary for the preservation and increase of this valuable fish. Being a mill- owner, I have interests which are supposed to clash with those of fish preservers; but I hope to be able to show that all mill- owners are able to give a pa.s.sage over their weirs at all times when the fish are inclined to run; that is, when there are freshes in the river. I say this the more confidently, as I believe the works here are the largest in England for the power of the stream they stand upon, and I find it necessary to employ 150 horse-power of steam. Yet I find from a careful register, which has been kept here since the year 1838, that we are able, without interfering with the efficiency of the water power, to give the fish a pa.s.sage over the weir 181 days, or part of days, annually, and this at times when alone they are disposed to avail themselves of such a pa.s.sage--that is in floods.

The suggestions that occur to me from time to time I will not fail to send you. At present the following seem to me to be essential, to give efficacy to any Act of Parliament framed for the purpose of preserving and increasing the breed of Salmon, for without some such provisions the gentlemen on the upper parts of rivers will have no inducement to exert themselves in the matter.

First.--No nets or other engines, except rod and line, should be used for taking fish from six o'clock at night to six o'clock in the morning, and all fish should be allowed a free pa.s.sage up the stream every night when this does not destroy or impair the efficacy of the water power.

Second.--No mill-owner nor his servants, nor any other person, should be allowed to take fish at his weir, or within fifty yards of it.

Third.--Conservators should be allowed to go into all wheel-races, wheel-houses and tail-goits, and also upon all lands on the banks of Salmon rivers, as well as inspect all cruives, weirs, &c., without being deemed guilty of trespa.s.s.

Fourth.--All weirs kept solely for fishing purposes, cruives, &c., should be compelled to give a free pa.s.sage to the fish every night from six o'clock to six o'clock in the morning; and any obstruction placed in the gap calculated to hinder or frighten the fish back, should be deemed breaches of the Act of Parliament and liable to a penalty.

Fifth.--All nets and other devices for catching Eels should be prohibited in April, May, and June.

Sixth.--Close time should be altered and extended, as well as made uniform, in all rivers.

Seventh.--The sale and use of Salmon roe should be prohibited.

Eighth.--Justices should be enabled to a.s.sist the pa.s.sage of fish over weirs by any contrivance which did not impair their stability nor the efficiency of the water power.

Ninth.--All cruives should be formed of vertical bars, and should have the intervening s.p.a.ces to measure not less than three inches.

Tenth.--No nets used in a Salmon river should measure in the mesh less than two inches and a half from knot to knot.

Eleventh.--Any person having no right of fishing found with a net in his possession or a Salmon out of season, should be guilty of misdemeanour.

Twelfth.--A ten shillings' licence for angling for Salmon.

The reasons for most of these suggestions will be obvious to you, but there are some which may not be so; I will therefore give a short comment on such.

Third and fourth.--The conservators shall have the right to inspect all wheel-races, cruives, &c., to see they are properly regulated, and also to see that no contrivance is used to drive the fish back. In the evidence given before the House of Commons in 1825, it was proved that the lessee of a fishery in Scotland used to place a crocodile painted red in the king's gap, which the law compelled him to give from Sat.u.r.day night till Monday morning.

Fifth.--The prohibition to set Eel nets in April, May, and June is to prevent the destruction of Smolts when going down to the sea.

Seventh.--Salmon are destroyed here when sp.a.w.ning chiefly for the sake of the roe. If a man were fined for selling it or having it in his possession, this inducement would be weakened.