SALMON : HOW TO GET AND HOW NOT TO GET

IT.

THE last salmon season was a very unfavourable one; salmon was

unusually scarce and, of course, proportionably dear. Weather, however, cannot be made to order ; and we do not complain of the scarcity which is a visitation of nature. Of artificial scarcity, on the other hand, or that which is produced by man, we do complain and have a right to complain, and a right moreover to insist on the re- dress of all remediable wrongs. A thorough knowledge of our griev- ances, in this department, is furnished in the recently published Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the salmon fisheries of England and • Wales, Sir William Jardine, Mr. W. J. Ffennel, and Mr. G. K. Rickards. By the combined exertions of

* They are said to be fourteen millions, but European writers never remember that Arabia is as large as Europe west of the Vistula, and no traveller has seen a tenth of its tribes.

these gentlemen—who benevolently tarned themselves for the time being into so many practical notes of interrogation, and went here,

there, and everywhere in England and Wales, asking eighteen hundred questions and getting eighteen hundred answers—we are pretty well able to make out what are our ways and means for in- creasing or decreasing our supply of salmon : how to get and how not to get it.

In order not to get it, we must do as we have been doing for some little time past, and we shall be sure to succeed. . Among the expe- dients for salmon destruction, not a bad one is that attributed by William Stapleton, the oldest fisherman of Appledore (Devonshire), to Mr. Bastard, also an hereditary fisherman. This deponent, who is particularly anxious that his rival should be restrained, conscientiously objects, it would seem, to similar restric- tions in his own case and that of "a parcel of poor people that are glad to get a bit of bread by fishing." This patriotic piscator wouldn't care what he gave to watch Mr. Bastard," and thinks " he ought to be catched at it." " I know," continues the same exemplary witness, " that our fishing falls off more and more every

year on account of Mr. Bastard catching the gravelling. We must suffer on account of that. If you kill all the children, how can you have men and women ?" A very sagacious question, and one which suggests the course to be pursued for the extermination of the king of fishes—viz. to employ all the Bastards and Stapletons in Eng- land and Wales to murder the young innocents of the waters.

In the spring and summer the salmon, as is well known, leaves his metropolitan ocean-bed, and goes to live in the country, "swimming stream upwards," to spawn on the pebbly river beds. Now there is no surer way of destroying the breed than to exclude the fish from entering the rivers. Accordingly weirs and dams of impassable con. struction should be (and are) extended across their entire breadth, in order to ensure the desired effect. This expedient has been adopted with great success, especially in the Ouse, Wharfe, Eure, Derwent, and other rivers in Yorkshire, as also the Severn, Dee, Tyne, the Tawe, and Torridge (Mr. Bastard's favourite sphere of action), the Avon in Hampshire, and the Test. Though the existing weirs have already been heightened and made more difficult of ascent, much yet remains to be done under this head. We want more fixed engines, too, in estuaries, more putts, putchers, raise-nets, mud-nets, bag-nets, baulk-nets, and jackass-nets. In the fresh water the des- tructive contrivances called fish-traps would be found splendidly effective, for the salmon, poor brutes, not being up to trap, get into it instead of getting over it.

In order to leave the salmon unmolested, when they are in an interesting situation, "a close season" should always be observed

This provision, of course, should only be carried out when you want to get salmon ; when you don't want to get it, observe neither times, nor seasons, nor days, nor months, but pursue your salmon in season and Out of season, remembering that all is fish that comes to your net.

Among the processes of extermination may be included the so- called illegal modes of fishing; for instance, "burning the waters ;" killing spent fish ; destroying breeding fish in the spawning beds, as in the upper parts of the Wye, where this kind of general massacre appears to be conducted by certain mysterious outlaws of magnifi- cent aspect and exalted hand, ; but see Report, p. xvi. Another capital plan for diminishing the food of the country is to poison the rivers by the efflux from mines. "Let us take as an ex- ample," as we used to say in our theme-writing days (and a very horrid example it is), the. Ystwith, to which we may add as equally horrid the RheidoL These two streams form a junction as they fall into the sea at the town of Aberystwith in Cardiganshire. Thirty

years ago they contained salmon in abundance; but, thanks to the admirable working of the Goginan lead mines, "a total extinction of

animal life has taken place in the waters of the Rheidol." We are happy to be able to state that its associate, the Ystwith, has been similarly affected by other lead works. Nor are these agreeable con- sequences confined to the fish. iCows, horses, pigs, and poultry have shared in the same common blessing. The water the animals drink, and the grass they eat, is most delightfully poisoned, and, ac- cording to the authority of a land as well as mine owning gentleman,

acres and acres of ground have been made waste and useless. On the Tawe, the Towey, the Taff, and South Tyne, it is sanguinely an- ticipated that the noxious effect of mine water will ultimately prove fatal to the fisheries, and, as lead mines arc perhaps about to be worked on the upper part of the Wye, there is a fine conditional prospect of extending the destructive operation to the fisheries of that yet admirable salmon river. For the Conway, and several other rivers of great natural capabilities, the same brilliant hopes are enter- tained; while, in that peculiar mineral county Cornwall, we are en- couragingly told, that "the salmon fisheries may be said to have been virtually destroyed by the mines." The destruction, however, in this case is not a purely disinterested destruction, for to prefer the second. class salmon rivers of Cornwall "to the great mining interests that form the staple industry of that wealthy county, would be to pre- serve salmon at a preposterous cost." In this case virtue is not its own reward. "The same principle," continue our eighteen-hundred- question-asking gentlemen, "applies, though in a modified degree, to the mineral undertakings of Glamorganshire and Cardiganshire, . which represent a great amount of property, and give employment to a large section of the population." A not dissimilar cause of -de- struction is the pollution of waters by manufactures and gasworks. In this case, too, which resembles that last mentioned, some of the rivers must necessarily be abandoned as beyond the reach of remedy, and the others cats be abandoned, with every chance of success, to

the contamination of gasworks and the chemical matter commonly called " bleach," a refuse from paper works. When to these de- stroying agencies we add the glorious "confusion and uncertainty of the law," which make it difficult to carry out existing acts, we shall see that we are already in possession of a very effective machinery for the extermination of salmon.

Having shown how not to get it, we have little to do but recom- mend a reversal of the process, in order to show how to get it. In briefly exhibiting the life-preserving system of expedients, we shall follow even more closely than we have done the report of her Majesty's Home Commissioners, leaving the public to judge of the value or durableness of their recommendations. 1. The institution of a board of conservators, "to be elected by, and to represent the various interests along the whole course of the river or rivers placed under the management of the board, including both the proprietors of land on the banks, the owners of several fisheries, and the fisher- men who exercise their vocation in the tidal and navigable waters." 2. The establishment of some central authority to assist, as well as to control, the local administrators of the fisheries, and to give elasticity to the working of a new and complicated machinery. The Lords' committee on Scotch fisheries have. already recommended a central board or commission to regulate salmon fisheries in Scotland, and in Canada they are already placed under the superintendence of a Government department. State interference is frequently objection- able ; but it is not impossible that in the instance of an imperial or national interest, like the present, a central supervision might be found to work well, in advising or assisting the local boards, in form- ing an appellate or arbitrating jurisdiction in case of dispute or con- flict, in procuring uniformity in the administration of the law, and aiding the Legislature in its amendment, when necessary. For the funds required for the proposed management and maintenance of the fisheries, the commissioners, advising some disbursement for State supervision, advocate entire dependence on the voluntary contribu- tions of the different fishing clubs and associations, and of the various resident proprietors. A rate on private fisheries, and a license duty on engines are also among the financial expedients recommended. 3. To reduce the charge of protection, the employment (as in Ireland and partially in Scotland) of the police and coastguard, to enforce the execution of the laws, is another, and perhaps somewhat questionable, measure suggested in this report. 4. While granting an extension of time for angling, the commissioners advise that salmon-fishing with nets and all other engines should be closed by law from the 1st of September to the 1st of February, a period of one hundred and fifty-three days, but little exceeding the present legal maximum of one hundred and fifty days, in which the dates of closing and opening are left to the arbitrary decision of the Quarter Sessions. 5. After a full consideration of the case, the commissioners are prepared to recommend the total suppression by law of all fixed engines on the

estuaries and sea-coasts. To enable the salmon to ascend the weirs erected for industrial purposes, mills, waterworks, &c., it is advised ` that passes should be affixed to them, rendering the surplus water available for the ascent of the fish. The construction of these passes

or salmon-ladders should also be enforced by the local boards, where natural obstacles seem to require it. Our commissioners, while not unwilling to include private fishing weirs in the same category of abolition with the fixed engines in the tide ways, satisfy themselves with expressing the opinion that if their continuance should, " out of regard to prescriptive en]oyment, be sanctioned by the Legislature," they should be subjected to such supervision as may guard against prevailing abuses in their management, and further encroachment upon public rights. There are some other suggestions, relating to the size of the mesh of nets, the sale of salmon roe, &c., to which we refer those of our readers who are more directly interested in this piscatory question. Without subscribing to the details of the measures advocated by the commissioners, and without being convinced of the expediency and practicability of all the recommendations, we yet think that they indicate a sound and wholesome principle. Sir William Jardine and his coadjutors, in fact, demand "a recurrence to the ancient and clearly pronounced policy of this country, the restora- tion of the fisheries by the removal of obstructions from the waters.

Their whole inquiry leads them to the conclusion that an open river is the best for all." They rightly remark, moreover, that the im- provement of the salmon fisheries is a question of public concernment. With a rapidly increasing population, to augment and not diminish the stock of food in the country is a simple and primary duty. The causes which are exhausting' the fisheries, and wasting that "rich provision of animal food which requires neither expense to maintain nor labour to cultivate," are, in their opinion, clear and palpable, and admit, to a great extent, of being remedied by legislation. One thing is quite clear. For some twenty years past the valuable fish to which we are so anxious to do justice has notably decreased in the rivers of Great Britain. To effect its entire extermination, to place it among the extinct animals, to point a moral, or at any rate to adorn a tale, we have only to continue our advance along the road to ruin which has been so triumphantly opened. If we can't set the Thames on fire, it seems that there is at least a certainty of our being able to "burn the water," take plenty of old fishes, and have a splendid salmon-fry. By a free use °filets, and gaffs, and traps, by encourag- ing the ubiquitous Mr. Bastard (for there is sure to be one every- where) to kill all the salmon-children, we shall be certain to have no salmon " men and women." By encouraging the ingenious Mr. Stapleton to "try all the dodges he can" (and he has already got his hand in), we shall soon attain a practical proficiency in the very fine -art of how not to get salmon. In days not far remote, perhaps, some future Sir William Jardine and his fellow inquisitors may ask a great many more than eighteen hundred questions, and receive a great many more than eighteen hundred answers, but there is one question about salmon which, if asked, will remain unanswered—How to get it ?