for fish; and since wars have been less frequent, or rather, grown so
much an art, that the ancient way of fortifying is not useful, are almost
disused. For being laid so near the dwelling, as we observe commonly
they are, for want of sun, and air to purge them, the water grows putrid
and slimy, yielding no pleasant scent to the house; besides, when
laid dry, as is necessary sometimes, the stench and filth of them are
insupportable; and therefore many gentlemen have either slighted them
wholly, or presented the form only, as a walk or low garden, planting the
side-walls with fruit, but without water: and so is the moat at Althrop
in Northamptonshire, a seat of the Earl of Sunderland’s, much of late
beautified, put in order, and from a defect, turned to a great perfection.
But I am an advocate for moats, ordered as they might be, and do esteem
them a very great accomplishment to a seat in many respects. 1. Though
they are not a fortification for resistance in time of war, yet against
pilferers and tumults, they are sufficient and better than any walls you
shall make. 2. They shall nourish a world of fish, which, though not so
well at command as in other waters, yet for angling, and the sporting
part of net-fishing, are better than the others are, because nearer, and
fished with smaller nets. 3. They are an ornament and delight to a seat
beyond imagination, as will appear when I have shewed how I would have
them made; and of that next.
They should encompass not only the house, but all the out houses, yards,
orchards, and it may be a pightle or two, such as are neat for ordinary
convenience of horses, or a cow or two: I say, all that is called the
home-stall, should be environed by the moat. It should be no less than
forty yards, or one hundred feet over, cut down with a slope on each
side, as your pond-heads were, without walls; which are too great charge
to keep in repair. And towards the pastures, you may make a mouth; if
it runs the whole length of one side of your moat, it is the better,
and fish will increase and thrive from it. Let there be but two avenues
with bridges: And to prevent the charge of crossing so great a length
with bridge-work, you may leave the earth on each side broad enough for
carriages, but not to meet by ten or twelve feet, which may be covered
by a bridge, and underneath, the water to communicate; so the pass shall
be, as upon a causeway, with a draw-bridge; for so it may be made, if you
please.
I know all situations and soils will not admit of this; for some are
low and marshy, and so have naturally too much water; others are upon
hanging ground, which for want of a level, cannot be moated in this
manner; others are sandy, and will not hold water: But the happiest of
all, is, such a situation as either hath springs, or will take a current,
and discharge it again by a sluice or gates, so that the moat shall be
perpetually fed with a fresh water, and may at any time be laid dry;
therefore in these affairs there must be a previous judgment of the
place, else undertakings will not succeed, and that is a great disgrace.
Now, such a moat as this hath all the convenience I spoke of, besides
serves the house with water; which from the wind and the sun’s free
access to it in a great body, will certainly preserve it sweet and
wholesome. The sinks of the house will not foul it, as it doth in lesser
quantities, even to kill the fish, as well as make the water unfit for
use. The view of it is a delicacy the greatest epicures in gardening
court, and we hear of it by the name of canal. Then the moving upon it in
boats, either in calm weather, or with some wind that stirs the water,
and gives a power of employing somewhat of sail, after a romantick way;
and thus circling an house, taking the variety of walks and gardens here
and there, visiting stables and offices, seeing the horses air upon the
banks, &c. are pleasures not given to be understood by any but statesmen,
laid aside for their honesty, who by experience are taught the variety of
greatness, and have an understanding to distinguish the true felicities
of life.
I know the objection of charge, which must be very great in such a
work, as this; but I consider the great profusion of money that is
allowed to transitory vanities; such as habits, treats, equipages,
not to mention vices too well known; such as are tellers of money and
depauperate families, leaving nothing but diseases to shew for them. If
so much, or a much less proportion being disposed to employ mankind,
the poor especially, in making holes, and filling them again, were much
more commendable. What is it then to produce advantage to yourself
and family, to improve your habitation and estate, preserve health and
reputation?
But even the charge might be alleviated, if not in great part saved,
by good management. For such gross works as this may be put out to
undertakers, and you may compute by the solid foot or yard, what the
charge will be; and the masters will see the men work, which you cannot
do if you are master, and do all by the day. Then, every one delights to
have raised walks and terraces about an house and garden; so that the
earth being employed in such, and raising mounts in proper places, will
produce a real equivalent for the charge: but this is a digression which
here I conclude, and return to the affair of fish.
Then considering moats, as commonly they are, it is not expected that the
fish should be much at command, because it is difficult, and perhaps not
convenient to lay them dry. However, they should be kept full stocked,
and will maintain a great many. This will mend your angling, and the
fishing with nets will seldom be labour in vain, as certainly it will
prove if under stocked. These waters will receive a great share of your
fry and stores that are superfluous, and so preserve them.
If a moat come to be laid dry, as will be necessary sometimes to keep it
from turning all to mud, after you have by a sluice or cut, drained the
water as low as you can, make dams with boards and clay, and ram them to
be water-tight; so you may toss the water out of one division to another,
and take out the fish in good order; but if you dry all together, you
will not be able to secure all; besides, having one division full of
water, you can relieve the fry and eels by letting it upon them; which
else, for want of a fresh to let in upon them, will be lost. So when one
division is fished, that is relieved by tossing the water out of the
next. And this course is not amiss, though you intend to throw out the
mud; for the saving the fish while you are taking them out, quits the
charge of making the stanks.
_Of other auxiliary Waters._
You must have other waters besides stews, to assist in the disposition of
the fish; for laying a pond in that great order dry, as I propose, once
in every year, there will be a great quantity of fish to be disposed;
so that you must have a sufficient quantity of waters to receive when
you abound, and to recruit when you want. The stews will carry sixty,
seventy, or eighty carps apiece, supposing you spend continually out of
them; so other waters will receive their proportion, by sending this way
and that the stock of fish, you will preserve all, and know where to find
them again.
These bye-ponds will be dispersed about your estate, where perhaps your
predecessors thought fit to make them, for the convenience of their
pastures, or you may make them as you can best, with respect to charge
and other advantages, observing always in a ground to take that part for
your pond, to which the waters are most apt to settle. In some places,
but very few, the waters stand best upon the hills, and the valleys, when
sandy, will not hold well. The nature of the ground is to be regarded.
Some ponds of good depth, of about five or six rods square, should be
assigned to maintain pikes, which, when great, ought to be kept by
themselves; for in a few years they will devour other fish, and greatly
surprise you in the destruction they will make. But I shall speak more of
this when I come to the stocking of waters.
I do much approve of cleansing and carting out the mud of small
standing waters once in seven or eight years, and so letting them lie
dry one summer, if you can spare the water; which, from moats, and
pasture-waters, can scarce be done, without great inconvenience. These
matters exercise the invention of a good œconomist, who will endeavour
to prevent damage, as well as save time, and turn even his pleasures to
profit.
One thing I advertise here, which is, not to let carps continue in a
small standing water above two summers and one winter; for so you run a
much less hazard from frost, than otherwise you will do; besides, the
fish will grow much more upon transplanting, than by continuing in the
same water, and more in the great, than in the small waters: but of these
things more afterwards.
_The Course of laying the Great Waters Dry._
Before I come to the business of fish, I will finish what I had to say
about ponds, and the conduct of them; and of that only remains to speak
of the course of laying them dry.
As for the smaller waters, I have touched what concerns them already; as
for the greater, or principal ponds, proceed thus:
In October, or after, draw the sluice of the first made pond, and lay
it as dry as possible you can. It may be the sluice, especially if the
pond be many acres, will not vent the water suddenly. That is of no great
import, because, as the waters fall, you will have opportunity of fishing
with nets, and so clear the fish by degrees; which left to the last, will
be too great a burden to clear, and will not be done without damage;
besides, the hurry will disorder every thing. If the sluice will not vent
all the water from the pan, a labourer or two will soon throw it out with
scuppets. Here you find the use of the channels of diversion, spoke of
before; for they will keep off all land-waters, if the time should prove
rainy, and so permit the pond to empty, and continue dry, which you could
not answer for a day without them; and therefore they should be made on
both sides of the waters, on each hill one, which will defend the shot of
these hills, that otherwise would retard the work.
When your pond is dry, and thus secured, keep it so all summer, and
you may make a profit of the soil sufficiently, either by ploughing or
feeding. And at Michaelmas next, or a little sooner, let fall the sluice,
and turn in all the water you can, that the pond may fill, and at the
being near full, it is ready to receive the stock again.
At the same time lay another dry, proceeding as before; which you may do
alternately during your whole life: nay, if you have but two great ponds,
this is the best course, and will turn most to the profit and feed of the
fish, as I shall shew when I speak of feeding.
If your stock be very great, you may let your ponds stand full two or
three years, but not longer, unless you delight to see starved lean
fish; for such they will certainly be, unless you keep an under-stock by
three-fourths continuing in the same water four or five years. And it
is a certain rule, that the oftener waters are laid dry, the better the
feed of the fish shall be, and more shall be maintained. And a little
experience will demonstrate the advantage to be great, as to the size,
fatness, and sweetness of the fish.
When your pond is dry, concern not yourself to carry out the mud for the
first fourteen or fifteen years; and then let it be only out of the pan
whence you took the earth to raise the bank, but never break the turf of
the rest of the ground flowed: but when it comes to be a yard thick in
mere mud, it is good to take it out; for though mud be good to improve
ground, yet, when it is taken from the pond, down to the dead earth, your
ground and soil are depauperated, and the water by consequence, which
cheats the fish, that is, yourself.
_Of the Breeding of Fish._
Having done with ponds, the manner of making, preserving, and using them,
I intend next to discourse of fish, and how best to dispose them to
maintain the waters in full stock: but before I come to the stocking of
waters, I must speak of the course of breeding fish, whereby the stock is
to be recruited and supplied.
Some have thought, that great difference is to be found in the sorts of
carps, some whereof are more apt to grow up to a great size, others to
spread and look thick, and others for the sweetness of the meat. I do
not deny but there may be some difference, but I cannot esteem it so
considerable, as to be worth the looking after. Varieties in nature are
infinite, and in the several breeds of fish, as of other creatures: yet
I have not observed so much of it in carps, that I could tell how to
distinguish them, where I could promise myself better success with one
sort than another. This is a nicety which fishmongers, that make a trade
of buying and selling, talk of, intending it only as a topic of mystery,
which all trades affect, and to have something to say for valuing or
undervaluing, as they sell or buy, to justify in their talk the prices
they propose to take or give; therefore this nicety is left to them.
I do yet believe, that a sort of fish, bred in great numbers in bad
waters, over-stocked, and almost starved, may in process of time
degenerate, and both lose a good shape, and be less apt to grow up
to a due greatness, than others that have been better descended of a
cultivated stock: and on the other side, it is no less possible, that by
coming into good quarters, fish may improve and mend; so that a gentleman
is to expect the goodness of his fish from the cleanness of his waters,
and the plenty of their feed, and not from any choice of his stock or
breed; and let him get them where he may, if well ordered, he may assure
himself they shall answer his expectations.
It is a common observation, that some waters will, and others will not
breed. It is my experience, that most waters, the first year after having
lain dry a summer, do breed, and that numerously, especially carps,
which I have known increase to such an incredible fry, that I have been
troubled how to dispose them, so as to have them again after three or
four years, when they became good stock for great waters. Eels and perch
are of very good use to keep down the breed of fish; for they prey much
upon the spawn and fry of bred fish, and will probably destroy the
superfluity of them.
The quality of breeding is scarce to be found out by any certain symptom;
for some very promising ponds do not prove useful that way. The best
indication I know of a breeding pond, is, when there is good store of
rush and grazing about it, and gravelly shoals, such as horse-ponds
usually have. When a water takes thus to breeding, with a few milters and
spawners, two or three of each, you may stock a country.
As for pike, perch, tench, roach, &c. they are observed to breed in
almost any waters, and very numerously; only eels never breed in perfect
standing waters, and without springs; and in such are neither found,
nor increase, but by putting in; but where springs are, they are never
wanting, though not put in: and which is most strange of all, no person
ever saw in an eel the least token of propagation, either by milt or
spawn in them; so that whether they breed at all, and how they are
produced, are questions equally mysterious.
_The Manner of Stocking Waters._
I have found a great analogy between the stocking waters with fish, and
pastures with cattle; and that the same conduct and discretion belong
to both. Waters may be over-stocked, as pastures often are; so both may
be under-stocked. The latter is the less error; for if you over-stock,
you lose the whole summer’s seed; if you under-stock, you lose only the
rest of your profit; what you do seed, is much the better, and turns to
account by more ready sale. So also of beasts; some of the same age and
seeding will not thrive so well as others. I have found the like in my
fish. And waters themselves, like pastures, have varieties of goodness;
some will raise carps from five to eighteen inches, in five years;
others will not do it in ten. This is most sensible between your great
waters made upon a fall, and the small standing waters, which have more
inconveniencies, and are liable to frosts, and other casualties, more
than the others are.
Therefore I propose, that the smaller waters should be used as nurseries,
and either to breed, or be stocked with the bred fry of other waters,
to raise them to a fitness for stores in your principal feed; that is,
to six or eight inches. And of these bred fry, you may put one hundred
into four rods square of water, or near that proportion, and fail not
to remove them in two years time; and so you will have good recruits of
stores for your greater waters.
And thus the many thousands of bred fish that you will have upon the
draining your great waters, which many are apt to slight, may be sent
several ways to the waters about that and your neighbour’s grounds,
and there fed up like chickens, and in time turn to great profit, as
I shall shew; therefore they ought not to be slighted, but carefully
to be preserved; the rather, because considering a pond (as I propose)
will, though but four acres, feed up one thousand six hundred carps in
two, and perhaps in one year, from ten to eighteen inches, fit for your
table-presents, or sale. How is it possible you should restock your
waters the winter after, without this providential forecast, whereby you
have magazines of fish in other ponds, fit stores to supply your occasion?
Now, as for your great and principal waters, it is hard to assign a
certain proportion for the stock; but perusing the methods I propose,
you will soon come to the knowledge what stock the waters will carry;
for laying a pond dry every year, you will see the fish well fed, or
else thin and lean; and accordingly you judge whether the stock was too
little or too much for the water. Thus, by the thickness or fatness of
cattle, you judge if your ground will carry more or not; and both as to
species and number of fish, experience must be your guide in the stocking
of waters.
However, to save loss of time, which you must sustain by making your own
experience, I will give the best directions I can, for the first entry
upon your business, and not leave the matter wholly in the dark.
If the pond be supplied with a white fat water upon great rains, you may
put into it at first three hundred carps per acre, in case there be three
or four acres, else not so many. And it will be expedient to put in forty
or fifty tenches for a trial, because this sort of water is most proper
for carp; but being laid dry, sometimes may prove well for tenches also,
which, when thriven, are a very good fish; but this proof by trial must
determine.
You may add perches to any number, and not hurt the water: I propose
six hundred; for though they are great breeders, being also fishes of
prey, they devour their own species as much, if not more than any other;
and by destroying the fry of bred fish, they preserve the food for the
maintenance of their feeders, which the fry would intercept; so do good
rather than harm. I took once out of a perch’s belly of ten inches, ten
other perches. This is esteemed one of the best sorts of fresh-water
fish, and therefore deservedly to be encouraged.
Have a great care of putting bream in this sort of waters; for they will
grow up very slowly, though at last they will be great; but in the mean
time they breed so infinitely, and such a slimy nasty fry, as both robs
and fouls the water, making it unfit for the other fish. But when a water
is ten or twelve acres, and fed with some brook, winter and summer, they
will do very well; otherwise not to be made use of.
As for pike, which are inferior to no fresh-water fish, and now more
esteemed than ever, being less plentiful upon draining the fens, and so
harm more; they are dangerous guests in the great waters; for if grown
large, they will devour and destroy the best fish, and depopulate the
water. But thus far you may trust them; if you can procure one hundred
jacks once in two years not exceeding nine inches, you may put them with
the carps into your great waters, so as your carps are not under nine or
ten inches; but take care that they stay not above two years, and then
send them to their peculiar ponds, and feed them as I shall hereafter
discourse, and so they will grow to be very large and fine fish, which
you would not want.
I cannot advise the stocking great standing waters with eels, for they
grow slow, and being of an indifferent size, will be lean and dry; but in
moats, which have the sinks of an house drain into it, is proper enough
for them, and they will thrive in it. It is a sort of fish, as I noted,
that belongs to a springy water.
These directions belong to the first stocking of new-made ponds, which,
as to feeding, lie under a disadvantage; the reason I have touched, and
is from the dead earth in the pan from whence you raised the bank,
and that at first, which is about an acre, is almost unprofitable. But
afterwards, when that dead ground hath contracted a little new soil from
the settling of the water, especially after land-floods, and lain dry a
summer, whereby it will begin to graze, it will become like the rest of
the pond, and put forth as good feed for fish as any other part. This may
seem strange and new, but is a great truth, known to me from indubitable
experience.
Then after one, two, or three years (for longer the pond must not stand
full), when you come to restock, and so on in all like occasions, you may
put four hundred carp, or three hundred carp, and eight hundred tench (if
the water feeds them) into an acre, besides perches. It is incredible
to those who have not seen it, as I have done, how carps thus ordered,
by transplanting them every year or two, will grow. I affirm, that from
six, they will grow to twelve and better the first, and to fifteen or
sixteen the next year; and then they are most fit for a gentleman’s table
ordinarily; for though greater are more ostentatious, yet these are the
most sweet and best meat, as young flesh is commonly preferred to old.
It is to be noted, that if the fish wherewith you stock the waters, were
kept so close together, and come from over-stocked waters, which renders
them lean and poor, you must double the stock at first; else the two
sudden plenty of food at first will surfeit them, and they will die of
overmuch blood, as I have found to my great loss.
_Of the Manner of feeding Fish._
In a stew you may keep up thirty or forty carps, from October to March in
winter, without feeding; and by fishing with trammels or flews in March
or April, you may take from your great waters, to recruit the stews; but
you must not fail to feed all summer, from March to October again, as
constantly as your cooped chickens are fed, and to as good and certain
account. The reason you feed in summer, and not in winter, is, because
the fish will lie close in cold weather, and feed little, not caring to
stir, especially upon the shoals, where it is proper to give them meat.
If you would bring more fish together into your stews, you may preserve
and improve them by feeding; but there are bounds, because the water
is but small, and will not admit any great number: but if you have a
great number of fish to be kept for an opportunity, and you put them
into a considerable water, you may in that manner stock to any quantity,
taking care duly to feed them; and so not only maintain, but improve
one thousand per acre; but if thus over-stocked, and you do not feed
sufficiently, they will sink, and you be a great loser.
Now, as for your stews, the care of feeding is best instructed to a
butler or gardener, who are or should be always at home, because the
constancy and regularity of serving the fish, conduce very much to their
well eating and thriving; for they will expect their meat as duly as
horses, and appetite in any creature wastes by disappointment.
Any sort of grain boiled is good to feed with, especially malt coarse
ground. Pease boiled a turn or two are as good as any other grain. The
grains after a brewing, while they are good and sweet, are very proper;
but one bushel of malt not brewed, will go as far as two of grains. The
chippings of bread, and orts of a table, steeped in tap-droppings of good
strong beer or ale, are very good food for carps. Of these the quantity
of two quarts to thirty table carps every day is sufficient; and to feed
morning and evening, is better than once a day only.
The place to feed is towards the mouth, at about half yard deep; for that
keeps the deep clean and fit, as a parlour to retire to, and rest in. The
meat plainly thrown into the water, without other device, will be picked
up by them, and nothing shall be lost. However, there are several ways to
give them meat, especially pease, which are useful, as a square board let
down, with the meat upon it, by the four corners, whence a string comes,
and made fast to a stick like a scale, is very manageable. A gentleman
had found out a very facile way to feed carps, worth noting, because I
have heard it was successful. He let down the very kettle in which the
pease were boiled, into the water, and the fish would come and take out
every grain.