Chapter II: Part 2

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.

When you feed in the greater waters, where the numbers are also great, it will be a charge as well as trouble; but when you take out the fish, and see how they are thriven, you will allow both well employed. Either malt boiled, or fresh grains, is the best food in this case: and what is not supplied from your own house and brewings, you may take of neighbouring alehouses, who will be willing, for a small matter, to throw into the water, at a place you shall assign, a certain quantity every brewing. Thus carps may be fed and raised like capons. And tenches will feed in stews, as well as carps; but perch, as was said, are not for a stew in feeding time.

There is a sort of food for fish, which I may call accidental, and is no less improving, than the best you can contrive; and that is, when the waters happen to receive the wash of commons where many sheep are fed, the water is enriched by the earth, and shall feed many more carps, than otherwise it would. This is the case at Antlingham in Norfolk, where there are ponds in a common that raise carp wonderfully, although the soil be sandy and poor, and the waters seldom let out; and this earthy wash is the reason of it. When cattle are fed upon the pastures by your great waters, if they have access to them, in hot weather they will take delight to stand in the water; the dung that falls from them, is also a very great nourishment of fish.

It is believed, that about London the fishmongers have ways of making carps fat by the offal of butchers shops and slaughter-houses; which I do not at all recommend to others, if that were to be done, because a sudden filthy feeding can neither be wholesome nor sweet. But I have not observed, that carps do in any sort delight in blood, nor indeed any other fish, except breams; and those will feed much upon new grains mixed with blood; so that if you will be at the charge of feeding them in stews, like carps, you may have large breams in six or seven years, which are a very slow grower, unless it be in springy waters.

One way of feeding fish is worth remembering, though not fit to be used in waters that you ever look upon. It is laying a dead carrion upon stakes in the middle of the water, and it will breed maggots, which falling into the water, feed the fish very considerably; but I have not proved it.

As for pikes, the best food to raise them up to an extraordinary fatness is eels; and without them it is not to be done, but in a long time; otherwise small perches are the best meat you can give them. And the common opinion, that pikes will not eat perches, because of their armed backs, is a great mistake, as I have found by certain experience. Breams put into a pike-pond, will breed exceedingly, and are good enough to maintain pikes, who will take care they shall not increase overmuch. And the great fry of roaches and rouds that come from the greater waters, removed into the quarters of your pikes, will be good diet for them.

Pikes in all waters, and carps in hungry springy waters, being fed at certain times, will come up and take their meat almost from your hand; and it is diverting enough to see the greediness and striving that will be amongst them for the good bits, and the boldness, that by constant and regular feeding, they will come to.

_Of disposing your Increase of Fish._

This care presseth when you employ your great waters; and unless you have projected beforehand how you shall dispose your fish, you will find yourself in great disorder.

As for carps for the service of your house, and also tenches and perch for winter, they are to be disposed into your stews. The rest of your fish, except the fry, you may put into the great water, and in March or April after, with flews or trammels, take out good quantities to recruit your winter’s expence taken from your stews; the fry goes to your pikes, except carps, tench, and perch, which may go to some of your auxiliary waters to be raised, in order to become stores again when you want. And if, after all, you find your stock too high, you must feed as I have already discoursed.

But you may contrive to keep your stock within compass; for you may enlarge the expence in your house, and gratify your family and friends that visit you, with a dish as acceptable as any you can purchase for money; or you may oblige your friends and neighbours, by making presents of them, which, from the countryman to the king, is well taken; for many that have waters, not being in a method of husbanding them, as well as others that have none, want and desire fish, and look upon such a present, as of a rarity, valuing it not by your plenty, but their own scarcity. And where fish is plenty, it is a positive disgrace to appear covetous of them, rather more than of venison, or any other thing; so that presents are not only expedient, but necessary to be made by him that professeth a mastery of fish.

Another way, more prudent, though in the account of shallow people, less reputable, is that of selling. If there were any colour for disreputation in that matter, I should bestow some words upon it; but seeing it resides only among vain women, or women-like men, I let the humour pass, and should as soon preach against the opinion of fairies and Robin-Goodfellow, as that. Only by the way, I presume to advise the censorious sparks to do nothing unjust; let their dealing be plain, though in selling of horses, spend what is their own, provide for their families, and be true to their friend; and after this, whether they sell corn, cattle, conies, sheep, deer, horses, or fish, I will insure their honour for a farthing. It is the truth and substance of things, and no person’s opinion, that governs honour, which consists wholly in doing what is truly just and good, and nothing otherwise.

This matter being dismissed, I proceed to direct the course to be taken when you propose to sell. First contract with the person you deal with for a quantity; which, if for sale to eat, will be by the measure of so much per inch, for every inch above a foot; if for stores, then so much per hundred, or dozen, between certain lengths, as between nine and twelve, and seven and ten inches, to be delivered alive where it is agreed.

This trade will be easy, if you are planted within forty miles of London, which will take off quantities for retailing, else it will be hard to find contractors; but for stores, there will be some always beginning in fish, with whom you may deal; and so few will sedulously apply to the conduct of their waters, as is necessary to a command of fish, you need not fear the country will be over-stocked. If the humour of living in the country once repossesseth the gentleman, there may be much more occasion for stores than at present there is, because their seats are let to tenants, and the waters uncultivated.

When you have contracted, you are at a certainty, and may proceed; for it is a great inconvenience to take and carry fish, and then be paid with a wrangle; therefore let your terms be certain, and you can have no dispute, because all is to be declared by measure.

You will find your stews and auxiliary waters of great use to you upon such occasions; for you clap in what fish you please for fourteen or fifteen days; for instance, five or six hundred carps to a brace of stews, and they take no harm: if they continue longer, it is but feeding them until they are fetched or carried away.

_Of fishing for Carriage._

As for the particular ways and methods of taking fish, such as I have dealt in, is at present besides my design, though I may not perhaps altogether pass it by, so much as concerns the carriage of fish, which I look upon as a considerable item in the managery as to profit, which I principally aim at, I shall now observe.

When your fishing is in order to remove far, whether the waters are great or small, it must be done in winter, between the first of October, and the last of March; and the colder the weather is, the better. One great caution is, not to handle, or any way to batter or bruise them; for it is a great truth, and common sense speaks it, that fish battered and bruised, will not thrive upon transplanting, so well as others; therefore when your pond is drawn, and you come to the fish, take them out of the water with hoop-nets fixed upon staves about ten feet long, and ten or twelve fish at a time in a net is sufficient, though but a foot long; more, by their weight and struggling, will damage each other insensibly, so as to hinder their growth and thrift, and perhaps be the cause that many die. Let the fish be as little out of the water as may be; for when fouled, and almost choaked with mud, they will clean and recover themselves with water, which freshen upon them often, till you come to put them up for carriage.

If you fish with nets, and make a great draught, as probably you will when the water is low, be not hasty to draw the fish upon the ground, but secure them by taking the lead line upon the ground, and holding up the cork line, and so let them stir a little, they will be the cleaner; and then take them out with hoop-nets, as before. And if there be occasion to keep them any time out of the water, let it be upon the grass, when there is no sun, or else in the shade, for heat is the greatest enemy to the life of fish out of water that can be.

The best vessel for conveyance (if you carry above twenty miles) is a great tun that holds five hogsheads; but if no more than ten, fifteen, or twenty miles, ordinary hogsheads will do well enough. I know by experience you may safely carry three hundred carps, six and seven inches long, in one hogshead; but from seven to a foot, not so many by a fourth part. If they exceed a foot, then not above seventy or eighty in a hogshead. Let every hogshead have ten or twelve pails of fresh clean water (not well-water), every six or seven miles, if it may be had. There is no need of any great liberty for the fish, if their water be fresh, and often renewed; for one great use of the water is to bury the fish, that with mere weight they might not crush and destroy one another.

When you are arrived at the place of discharge, pour the fish into an hoop-net a few at a time, and dispose them forthwith where they are designed; and with this care you will scarce lose a fish.

Some use to put up fish in baskets or hampers for carriage, stowing them with grass between; but this is not so good as water, for the grass cleaving to the slime of the fish, rubs and cleans it from the scales; which done, a carp scarce ever thrives after. And although perhaps the fish may live, they will not grow or thrive, because their natural slime, scarce recoverable, is rubbed off; and for the same reason, it is not good to let carps lie at all in grass, but keep them always in water, to preserve them from bruises, and losing their slime.

_Of Nurseries to Ponds and Fish._

Generally speaking, the fresher air and cleaner soil your water hath, the better fish thrive. Wood of any sort near the water is bad, not only from its hindering the wind and sun from purifying the water, but from the leaves falling in, and rotten wood; both which are pernicious to fish. But osiers and willows may be allowed of, without much inconvenience. Oak boards, or timber laid in water, as sometimes is done to season, will in all probability destroy all your fish; and likewise hemp laid to rot; all which are therefore to be avoided. Dung-hills, stables, or cow-houses, permitted to drain into ponds, are very ill neighbours, and most especially wash-houses, which certainly spoil a standing water.

_Of Frosts, and the Ways to save the Fish in them._

The great plague and bane of fish in moats, great and small, and other little standing waters, are great and sharp frosts. I have used all the tricks that I have heard of, which are not a few, or could devise, to save my fish in such waters; and yet in ten years time I have lost three or four thousand carps. But yet I have found ways to save the life of many a fair carp, when my neighbours have lost all; which I shall declare as my own experience, and may be profitable upon like occasions to any that will use them.

First, as to the sorts of fish that suffer most, I can only say, that the tench, if any, is frost-proof, and will shift in extremity; but if the frost be intense and long, the other sorts, as carps, eels, pike, perch, and roach, will go near to perish; and I have found not any great difference of hardness, but when one fish complains, they are all in imminent danger.

The waters most obnoxious to frosts are such as are standing, shallow, or small. For if there be either a water-current, or a fresh spring, no fish dies for frost. If an hard winter succeeds a very dry summer, the fish suffers most. If the ponds are large and deep, such as I have directed to be made upon the channel of water, which may not run but upon floods or rain, the fish will never die in frost there; but such waters you must look upon as the asylum for the securing the fish in extremity; and all that you can put in there alive, though through a hole in the ice, will certainly live. If the bank of a pond sews, it will preserve the fish in frost; the reason, as I imagine, is, because where the water sews out, the air will bubble in, which relieves the fish; or perhaps it might put the water into some degree of motion. If so, the stirring water with a board flat upon a pole put under the ice, might do good; but this is conjecture.

The symptom of mortality to your fish in time of frost, is, their shewing themselves; which if you perceive in the least, conclude all are going; and without a thaw, that water will not keep them alive. For it is the nature of fish in cold weather to lie as close and deep as they can; so that nothing but the pangs of death shall make them move. If no holes are broke, they will rise and stick to the ice, and be frozen to it; if there be holes, they will move about them, as if they came up for fresh air.

When the frost hath continued long, and hard, that you begin to suspect your fish, you may make a trial by cutting holes in several places, some in the middle, and some by the sides of the waters that are obnoxious; that is, after about ten days freezing; and by the appearing of the fish, or not, you shall discover the temper and condition they are in; therefore watch them diligently. If they are not well, they will appear; then prepare all hands to take out every fish, as near as you can; for what you take out, you may preserve, and all that are left behind, are probably lost.

Many use to break holes to relieve the fish, and, as they think, give them fresh air; some have put dung bound up together into the holes, as if the warmth of that keeping the hole open would preserve the fish; but these ways, and all others that I have heard of, except taking out the fish, are mere vanities. I have cut many holes, and large ones, and employed men to take out the ice, and keep them open, but to no advantage. One thing appeared very oddly to me, when I took that course. Many of the fish in a large moat had gathered together in a corner obverted to the South, where the ground rose under an high bank, to a shoal-water. These fish, by their motion and heat, together with the sun’s heat, that was strongest there, kept the water from freezing, and I could plainly see every fish, great and small. There were carp, pike, perch, eels, and fry in abundance, collected as if it had been a general counsel of all the orders of fish, met to consider what was to be done in that extremity, very diverting to observe.

But to leave conceits, and come to the only expedient which I have found effectual to save the fish in this case; and that is, to set great tubs or fats full of water in some outhouse, not far from a fire; and as fast as the fish appear, take them out, and put them there; and from thence you may convey them in a basket to your great waters, where you may make an hole at about eight feet deep, and putting the fish in, preserve them; or if you please, you may keep them there, freshening the water every twelve hours, until the frost breaks, and put them into their own houses again. You may plainly perceive how the fish, though stunned and numb with the frost, coming into the fat, will by degrees recover, and be perfectly well again; and thus you may keep them five weeks, or longer, if the frost continues.

I have gone farther: sometimes fish have been to all appearance dead, others frozen and inveloped in ice, yet by this method I have preserved them; for heating water, and putting it into the fat, until I brought the water there to a Midsummer heat, and then I have put such fish in, with their shell of ice upon them, and in six or seven hours the ice was gone, and the fish alive and well; and so I have delivered them to my great waters, brisk as any.

This may seem strange, but it is most true, and to be attested, if need were; therefore in frost use this and no other means, for all else will prove but labour in vain.

In small waters, where is the greatest danger of frost, observe never to put in stock, but the last week of February, or beginning of March; for then they take less hurt in removing, and they may be taken out in October after, and so all hazard of frost prevented; and if you venture them there one winter, be sure never let them run the hazard of another. So you have two summers feed, which will raise a carp from store to the table, and venture but one winter’s frost; and in winter they neither feed nor grow any thing considerable.

_Of the ordinary Benefits and Improvements by Fish._

These were touched when I spoke of disposing the increase of fish; that is, furnishing your table, obliging your friends, and raising money. I shall only add to the last, that it is most reasonable, if it can be contrived, that pleasures pay for the charge of them. Then what is more justifiable, than to make ponds yield a profit to answer the great charge in making them?

But we must go farther: ground shall be vastly improved by fish, and shall be intrinsically worth, and yield more this way, than by any other employment you can give it: for suppose it meadow of two pounds per acre (which is an high value for the best meadow far from London), I will justify, that four acres in pond shall return you every year one thousand carps fed up, from — to fourteen or fifteen inches, besides pikes, perch, and tench, and other fry, useful on many accounts, if the water suits them. The carps are saleable, and will bring perhaps twelve pence, but in all likelihood not less than nine pence; yet, let it be six pence apiece, there is twenty-five pounds, which is six pounds five shillings per acre; a little charge of carriage perhaps to be deducted. This is improvement enough.

But lay aside profit, and consider how a gentleman should entertain himself and his family, which I must suppose every one hath, who lives upon an estate, and it may be numerous; he must find some sort of diversion for them. Must it be altogether going abroad to make, or at home receiving visits? Or if the female part are so grave, to decline that course of life, must they always be within? Or if they stir out, have nothing but mere air to invite them? Perhaps the gentleman himself may find diversion by hunting, &c. and meeting company upon several diverting accounts; and shall all his entertainments be exclusive of his family? No, certainly; whoever aims at an easy and satisfactory course of life, must seek that his family, as well as himself, be pleased: and if he doth not order it so that they shall be entertained, it is ten to one they will find such entertainments as shall not be very grateful to him; therefore there is advantage enough in the mastery of fish, from the diversion, not to speak of the employment that it brings to a family. Young people love angling extremely; then there is a boat, which gives pleasure enough in summer, frequent fishing with nets, the very making of nets, seeing the waters, much discourse of them, and the fish, especially upon your great sweeps, and the strange surprizes that will happen in numbers and bigness, with many other incident entertainments, are the result of waters, and direct the minds of a numerous family to terminate in something not inconvenient, and, it may be, divert them from worse. Parks, bowling-greens, and billiard-tables, are of the same design; but it will be easily granted, this of fish is beyond them all.

If it be said, that this is not a pleasure, it is all care and pains, especially to him that is the master, who must be perpetually vexed at the negligence and blockishness of servants, that will never perform what he expects and orders: I answer, that is a good reason for leaving the world. The plague of servants is the same in all business, wherein you use and depend upon them; therefore, to be rid of it, give away your estate, retire, and be an hermit: and even then you shall find the gnawing of your own mind a more perverse evil, than all the business, servants, with the crosses and vexations attending them. We were not made perfect, but must live in perpetual disease; the only point is, which way to lessen it; and that must be by employment, which diverts the sense of our innate misery. What can be a greater torture, than to live chained to a bed, though the best in the world, and have no company nor business? Therefore court business, if you would pass for an epicurean, and let it be such as brings comfort to nature, and not pain and torment in the consequence; that is to say, lawful, profitable, obliging, and temperate. So you avoid offending the publick, increase your store, win your friends and family, and preserve your health; all which, I take it, are accomplished, in great measure, by the mastery of fish.

Now, as to the vending of fish, observe that it is best to be content with the market price, as you can find it, as most are for other vendible commodities; and for carps between thirteen or fourteen, or sixteen inches, measuring from nose-end to tail-end, twelve pence is a good price; selling to the nobility or gentry, may produce one penny more, and may measure up to seventeen; but never promise above twenty turned of sixteen in twelve score.

_Of Benefits, besides the main Design._

These are many, and not inconsiderable; as first, when you make a great water, you take the first spit of the ground upon which the bank is to stand, and from the pan of the pond. In case you take earth there for the bank, and this you carry to some place where it is most easily removed upon your tillage-ground, and there let it lie to rot the sod, and then there is not a better manure, and more than pays the charge of digging and carrying it.

2. You gain the making of stews, and, it may be, other ponds for the convenience of your cattle, all under one charge: for if you must dig clay and earth for your bank, it is as easily taken where it doth this, as otherwise.

3. If the soil about the waters be any thing moorish, it may be planted with osiers, which yield a certain yearly crop.

4. The feed of the pond when laid dry, or the corn, that is, oats, which you may have upon the bottom, though mere mud, is very considerable. This hath been touched before.

5. You will invite all manner of help to your fishing, by the fry given among those who assist you; and though you pay them, they will expect fish; and with expectations of carrying home a dish of fresh fish, men will work in wet and dirt, to a wonder, without other pay.

6. If you graze cattle near your great waters, they will delight to come and stand in the water; and it conduceth much to the thrift of your cattle, as well as the feed of your fish, which is much supplied by the dunging of the cattle; and therefore it is good to have ponds in cow-pastures and grazing grounds.