THE RETURN OF THE TROUT.
In a very plaintive voice Mr. Noel Buxton said the other day (in the company of four other Ministers of Agriculture) that he had only one objection to sugar beet : he did like a bit of pike fishing ; and he understood that the effluents from the sugar factory were deaths to his favourite prey. Well, we have heard a great deal about the fouling of the rivers ; and the great democracy of. fishers of coarse fish are as much concerned as the fly-fishermen. It is very important to keep our rivers pure; and it is quite true—to stress a quaint historical fact—that more than half the rivers that flow by our cathedral towns could no longer, as in the old days, supply Friday food to fasting citizens. This is true ; but those who complain of pollution do not all realize that in general the poison, whatever it is, has not hurt the coarse fish. For example, the dace in the Lea abounded though the trout vanished ; but at last the trout, too, arc returning. Many good fish will be caught therein on the fly this spring, as last.
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