Having thus digged about eight foot deep, that so it may carry about six foot VVater, pave all the bottom and the Banks of the Pond with large Sods of Flot-Grass, laying them very close together, pin them down fast with small stakes and windings: This Grass is a great Feeder of Fish, and grows naturally under VVater. Stake down to the bottom of one side of the Pond divers Bavens and Brush-VVood-Faggots, into which the Fish may cast their spawn, and preserve it: In another place lay Sods upon Sods, the grass sides together to nourish and breed Eels.
The Pond being thus made, let in the Water, and now observe to store it thus: Put your Carp, Breame and Tench by themselves: Pike, Pearch, Eel and Tench (the Fishes Physician) by themselves; & for Food of the greater Fishes, as well as Meat for your greater Dishes, put good store of Roach, Dace, Loach and Menow; and Lastly to every one Melter put three Spawners, and in three Years the Increase will be great; and in five Years with difficulty destroyed.
At the end of three Years Sue your Pond; which you must ever continue so to do, for that the Roach, &c. will increase in such abundance, that eating up the sweetest food, will make your other Fish, as Carps, &c. be lean and hunger-starved: And therefore every Year view your Pond, and observe if any such Fry appears; and use your Discretion.
And because the Carp is a Fish of a general Acceptation, and is of a bon goust almost in every mans palate; and being by the aforesaid little Devourers and Multiplyers, very often Deceived in your expectation of a fat Carp, large and sweet; I shall insert here an excellent VVay of making Carps grow to an extraordinary Bigness in a Pond.
To make Carps grow large, &c.
About the Month of April, when you perceive your Pond grow low in VVater, rake all the sides where the VVater is fallen away with an Iron Rake, and sow Hay-seeds there, and rake it well; and at the Latter end of Summer you shall have good store of Grass: The Winter being come the VVater will encrease and over-top all the Grass, and there being VVater enough to carry them, the Carps will resort to the seeds, and feed briskly and grow as fat as Hoggs: Thus do every Summer, till you sue your pond, and no River Carp can surpass them.
Thus much of Fishing and Fish-Ponds.
The Use of the Bow is of so great Antiquity, and of so important a Consequence for a defensive and offensive Armes, that I could not but a little consider, how needful the true knowledge of its Use was esteemed of Old, and how little it is accounted now. It is uncertain, as well as (almost) unknown, who was the First Inventor of the Bow; but if we examine the Probability there may be of its being derived from the Tyranical Government of Nimrod, that so Mighty Hunter before the Lord, we may Conjecture him to be the first Inventor of the Bow: For as he is called the First Founder of a Monarchick Government, by reducing and subduing a disordered People under the Government of himself; so was he likewise esteemed a Mighty Hunter in another respect, for that he Subdued likewise the Beasts of the Field; as is observed of him and his Character, by sundry Commentators on him and his Family. So that in the whole we may suppose him to be the Inventor, or first Finder out of the Bow, as a Weapon of an infallible Execution and mortal Efficacy on that account. Nor can I find any mention made of the Bow thro the whole Hystory of Genesis from Nimrod to Esau, they both being characterized with those Epithets of Mighty and Cunning Hunters, Men of the Field; who very well understood the Use of the Bow, as well for their Profit as Pleasure; the last of which is particularly hinted in the commands of Isaac to Esau, that with his Quiver and his Bow, he should Hunt and take that only Seasonable Dish, which might procure and entaile a Blessing on him and his Posterity. Nay, that Holy Patriarch Jacob himself, in his last Will and Testament to his Illustrious Family, bequeaths a singular Portion to his beloved Joseph, which the strength of his Bow had intitled him to. Gen. 48. 22.
Nor are we to doubt in what Estimation it was held to the Reign of David King of Israel, who thought it the most Necessary Qualification of his Subjects, to be very well versed in the Use of the Bow. The Bow which was the Famous Signal between his beloved Jonathan and himself, and made the private Testimonial of the undeserv’d Fury of his Maliciously & Enviously incensed Father Saul: By reason of whose eminent Skill, in the expert use of it, he chants forth his Mournful Elegy, The Bow of Jonathan returned not empty, from the Blood of the slain, &c. Nay further so useful (no doubt) he thought the Knowledge of the Bow was, and of so necessary a Consequence for a Defensive as well as Offensive Armes, that it is observable he issued out a particular Edict or Proclamation, commanding the general Learning its use throughout Judah. And the Use of it continued and still does in the East, as the only Weapon they are skilled in.