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?