I think with you that the Calder can never become a Salmon river, so long as manufactories flourish on its banks, and it is not desirable that it ever should become so at their expense; but even in the Calder (and its tributaries) a little care would prevent immense mischief.  Some people at Church, a few years ago, very carelessly pushed a quantity of poisonous matter into the Hyndburn brook, and the first thunderstorm that followed carried it down the Calder into the Ribble, and poisoned all the fish between Calder foot and Ribchester.  Take another instance of carelessness in the Ribble, the emptying of the gas-holder tank at Settle, which when turned into the river killed nearly all the fish between that town and Mitton.  Several other instances occur to me, but these two are sufficient to show the great mischief occasioned by avoidable neglect and carelessness.  Such mischief should not be perpetrated with impunity.

The act of 1861 was very good as far as it went, notwithstanding some oversights; but it did not go far enough.  It did not give to the upper riparian proprietors such an interest in the fish as they are entitled to, nor is the interest they now have sufficient to induce them to exert themselves in the preservation and increase of the Salmon as they might and would do if such additional stimulus were given to them.  The law now is, that no nets shall be used in the taking of Salmon between twelve o’clock at noon on Saturdays, and six o’clock on Monday mornings.  That is, forty-two hours per week.  But in the Ribble, as a rule, we never see seasonable Salmon until May.  Now from that time to the 1st of September, is, say sixteen weeks, and at forty-two hours per week (the length of the weekly close time) this gives twenty-eight days during which time the fish may pass up the river without interruption; but this is by no means the true state of the case.  Everyone conversant with the habits of Salmon knows that they never ascend rivers except when they are in a state of flood; and in average summers, partly owing to droughts, and partly to the rapid evaporation and absorption of moisture by vegetation, these twenty-eight days may fairly be reduced by two-thirds, to give the true time allowed for the ascent of the fish.  But say ten days, which are supposed to give an adequate supply of fish to a hundred miles of river,—­the extent of the Ribble and its Salmon-breeding tributaries.  Is it surprising that the upper proprietors are not satisfied with this state of things?  It would be surprising if they were content with such a cheeseparing allowance.

When the bill of 1861 was before the House of Commons, I had an opportunity (indirectly) of suggesting to the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis the propriety of a considerable extension of the weekly close time.  He replied, “You might as well propose to shoot partridges only three days a week, as to restrict the netting of Salmon to only three days.”  With all due deference to such an authority, there