The Rutland weekly globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-03-13

| lie necessity demands the building of fish
vavs i'm the one crse as in the other is
another matter. What l wish to assert
! here is that the principle of law which OBJ
| tains i'm one cpse obtains in the other My
! own impression is that the building OF fish
ways,as enforced upon dam-owDers, should
/ he limited for the present at least, and per-
/ haps for a long time to those on rivers up
which in former times salmon and slAd
used TO run. To cocrcc mill owners ON Or
binary or moderately sized mil-slrcalns Ia
| build iishways, might operate us II serious
| burden upon small industries, and, in view
! Of the fact that the fostering of manuiac-
tories is one great, indeed the great interest
| of 0ur commonwealth, it may not be wise
| to order such lishways to be built, unless IT
/ may I've on certain streams too far away
| from railroad or water carriage to make
| manufacturing an available occupations,
end presenting the best conditions for sue
c,.ssiul fish culture. But even in such ca
| ses it may be well TO pretermit for the
nunCe all alteration of the present condi-
! ton of things. and wait until the
! growing experience in fish culture demon
| stis,es more clearly the need of interference
! While there can be no question of the
| truth of the foregoing statements in regard
| to impediments to the natural. ancient and
accustomed run of fishes, it becomes a
serious question whether the state can
coerce the erection of fishways for the pas
| sage of sea fish in rivers which have never,
in historic,periods, been the lesort of such
migratory fishes. To re-people stream
with IFS olden salmon, to re-establsh an
ancient right, to restore property destroyed
! by heedlessness or greed is one thing to
colonize IA river with tribe all foreign to
it, to establish rights new to the region, to
add property and privilege where none
have been destroyed or have.existed before,
is another. The common law, which gov
erns this matter of the obligation to pro-
vide fsh-ways, is the slow accumulation Of
legal wisdom in a country all of whose
rivers, almost without exception, were the
annual resorts of breeding fishes 1t never
conceived of a Mississippi or Ohio river, or
of great watersheds gathering each rain
| fall greater than that of all the lands be-
! longing to the Crown, or of vast systems of
interior lakes and rivers. cut off by great
waterfalls from migratiOus from the seas.
Hence 1t would not be wise or Just to hold
our streams to be governed by the English
law, except under such notifications of
that law as adapts it to our conditions,
geographic as well as political. Thus
while the common law may be well left to
work the building of fish-ways over all our
dams obstructing the Connecticut, a river
up which sea fishes have always run in their
srason-a river, but for artificial obstruc-
tions. accessible to many of the migratory
varieties up to its highest reaches, it can
hprdy, by paralellsm of right, beallowed
TO cOercc the bnllding of fish-ways for the
passage of salmon up Otter creek above
Nerpennes. in which no salmon ever yet
has been seen or caught, and up which no
salmon, the most sctive of all emigrants,
could ever 90 if every mill-dam along the
stream were torn down to its foundations.
If ever in such rivers ii may be profitable
venture to introduce salmon and other sea-
going fish, the charge of f1sh-ways must be
! upon the public and not upon mill-owners.
From what has been said it will be seen
that there can be no question of the power
and the equitable right of our Legislature
to pass laws requiring the building of fish
ways over mill-dams situated on streams
which are natural shad and salmon streams
1t only remains TO show their uses and the
necessity for them.
Fshways are artificial channels in which
the water. Instead of falling precipltately
from higher to lower level, flows along
a regular slope 50 nearly approaching the
horizontal, and in which the velocity with
which the water descends is SO interrupted
that the fish, seeking to ascend, can stem
pass the obstacle made by the dam. These
channels or conduits are made by eXcava-
tions in the banks below the dam, or by
erecting wooden tloughs with cross pieces
extending ilom each side of the trough
two-lhi.ds across, each crOss-picce being
fastened 60 the right and left side alter
nately. The details of the construction
are varied in various patterns, and the
grade OF the ascent is proportional to the
activity and strength of the kind of fish for
which the ladder is provided. An incline
of one foot to fifteen is considered sufii-
clent for the shad, the feeblest climber;
for, while salmon can clear sheer fall
of six feet or more, shad are not known to
leap at all. Thus a dam ten
feet high would require for q shad-
way a ladder one hundred and fifty
feet long, but the fish ascending it would
by reason of the zigzag of the current
caused by the cross pieces, have to trave
about three hundred feet or more. But
the difficulty of the ascent would be less
than through the natural bed of the river
through rapid falling ten feet in foul
hundred. The upper end of the
trough is set IN the upper edge of tht
dam; runs thence in any line-straight
curved, angular. or folded upon itself, t
the deep water below the dam. They art
made of varying lengths, according to the
height of the dam of varying width, ac
cording to the multitude of fish to ascent
them of varying depth, according to Tho
f size of the individual fish, and of varying
f strength, according to the accidents OF sit
uation and climate, and are protected nc
, cording 20 exposure.
The necessity for this is obvious, for
fish cen no more get over a dam higher
3
climb brick wall forty feet high withou
a ladder to climb on. These fishways ar
5 required on the ground of that instinct il
= fishes, by the operation of which they al
ways return to spawn in the streams wher
r they themselves were hatched. In doinI
, this they keep these rivers peopled will
u their descendants, and are themselves liabl
1 to capture If salmon eggs or young sal
mon were put into the stream at MOntpe
lier, they would grow there into good size
: tingerlngs and HE away TO the sea, an'
S that would be the last seen of them at o
r neFr our Capital. They would be foun,
afterwards below the falls at Winooski
! betting theirpoor lives out in frantic effort
IS 10 ascend the falls. Fishermen Nigh
J. catch them there. They might appear up
a on the ho,el tables at Montpelier somethn
=, more iceely by reason of diminished cost
} But for the people along the banks of th
+ stream there would be no more salmon fish
d ing than If never an egg had hatched in tn
e waters. Fishways along the river wOul
permit the salmon TO come to your door q
= Montpelier, to be taken when wanted, s
y fresh that they will fairly flop in the boi
is ing pot or wriggle on the gridiron. The
n would. build their own nests, hatch their ow
a eggs without cost to anybody. With singl
IS pair, grown to adult life and domiciled |
's the pools, the stocking of the stream
l. only question of time. But few yeal
,e would pass before every fit pool would iias
v in the sunlight with the rush and sheen c
ie their silver beauty. And, perhaps, in tim,
10 but for the kindly offices of the railway
le the unfortunate laborers upon Iiparia
M farms, AS whilom on the Connecticut, migl
honinrr1 ilAo ln1ria lnA L..