Part 8

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.

As to the sowing of oats in the bottom of a pond, observe to dry your great water once in three, or at most four years, and that at the end of January, or beginning of March; which, if not a very unreasonable year, will be time enough. After Michaelmas following, you may put in a very great stock; and thin them in following years, as the feed will decline.