acres, and the
annual rent for fishing would amount to over 3 pounds 13s. per acre.
This would make every fish-bearing acre of the river worth 100
pounds, calculated on the land basis of interest or rent.

Having heard of the Stormontfields' Ponds for breeding salmon, I had
a great desire to see them. They are situated on the Tay, a few
miles above Perth, and are well worthy of the inspection and
admiration of the scientific as well as the utilitarian world. The
process is as simple as it is successful and valuable. A race or
canal, filled with a clear, mountain stream, and constructed many
years ago to supply motive power to a corn-mill, runs parallel with
the river, at the distance from it of about twenty rods. At right
angles with this stream, there are twenty-five wooden boxes side by
side, about fifty feet in length, placed on a slight decline. These
boxes or troughs, each about two feet wide and one foot deep, are
divided into partitions by cross-boards, which do not reach, within
a few inches, the top of the siding, so that the water shall make a
continuous surface the whole length of the trough. Each trough is
filled with round river stones or pebbles washed clean, on which the
spawn is laid. The water is let out of the mill-race upon these
troughs through a wire-cloth filter, covering them about two inches
deep above the stones. At the bottom, a lateral channel or race,
running at right angles to the troughs, conducts the waste water in
a rapid, bubbling stream down into the feeding-pond, which covers
the space of about one-fifth of an acre, close to the river, with
which it is connected by a narrow race gated also with a wire-cloth,
to prevent the little living mites from being carried off before
their time.

This may serve to give the reader some approximate idea of the
construction of the fish-fold. The next process is the stocking it
with the breeding ewes of the sea and river. The female salmon is
caught in the spawning season with a net, and the ova are expressed
from her by passing the hand gently down the body, when she is again
put into the river to go on her way. The manager told me that they
generally reckoned upon a thousand eggs to a pound of the salmon
caught. Thus fourteen good-sized fish would stock the twenty-five
troughs. When hatched, the little things run down into the race-
way, which carries them into the feeding-pond. Here they are fed
twice daily, with five pounds of bee