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Side 106 av 113
'Tis noted, that the Tench and Eel love mud; and the Carp loves
gravelly ground, and in the hot months to feed on grass. You are to
cleanse your pond, if you intend either profit or pleasure, once every
three or four years, especially some ponds, and then let it dry six or
twelve months, both to kill the water-weeds, as water-lilies, can-docks,
reate, and bulrushes, that breed there; and also that as these die for want
of water, so grass may grow in the pond's bottom, which Carps will eat
greedily in all the hot months, if the pond be clean. The letting your
pond dry and sowing oats in the bottom is also good, for the fish feed
the faster; and being sometimes let dry, you may observe what kind of
fish either increases or thrives best in that water; for they differ much,
both in their breeding and feeding.
Lebault also advises, that if your ponds be not very large and roomy,
that you often feed your fish, by throwing into them chippings of bread,
curds, grains, or the entrails of chickens or of any fowl or beast that you
kill to feed yourselves; for these afford fish a great relief. He says, that
frogs and ducks do much harm, and devour both the spawn and the
young fry of all fish, especially of the Carp; and I have, besides
experience, many testimonies of it. But Lebault allows water-frogs to
be good meat, especially in some months, if they be fat: but you are to
note, that he is a Frenchman; and we English will hardly believe him,
though we know frogs are usually eaten in his country: however he
advises to destroy them and king-fishers out of your ponds. And he
advises not to suffer much shooting at wild fowl; for that, he says,
affrightens, and harms, and destroys the fish.
Note, that Carps and Tench thrive and breed best when no other fish is
put with them into the same pond; for all other fish devour their spawn,
or at least the greatest part of it. And note, that clods of grass thrown
into any pond feed any Carps in summer; and that garden-earth and
parsley thrown into a pond recovers and refreshes the sick fish. And
note, that when you store your pond, you are to put into it two or three
melters for one spawner, if you put them into a breeding-pond; but if
into a nurse-pond, or feeding-pond, in which they will not breed, then
no care is to be taken whether there be most male or female Carps.
It is observed that the best ponds to breed Carps are those that be stony
or sandy, and are warm, and free from wind; and that are not deep, but
have willow-trees and grass on their sides, over which the water does
sometimes flow: and note, that Carps do more usually breed in marle-
pits, or pits that have clean clay bottoms; or in new ponds, or ponds that
lie dry a winter season, than in old ponds that be full of mud and weeds.
Well, Scholar, I have told you the substance of all that either
observation or discourse, or a diligent survey of Dubravius and Lebault
hath told me: not that they, in their long discourses, have not said more;
but the most of the rest are so common observations, as if a man should
tell a good arithmetician that twice two is four. I will therefore put an
end to this discourse; and we will here sit down and rest us.
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