The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, MARCH 5, 1888. A NEW FOOD SUPPLY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2839, 5 March 1888, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, MARCH 5, 1888. A NEW FOOD SUPPLY.

We recorded the other day the fact that our river trout were being openly sold about Kurupuni by boys, Such a sale is altogether illegal and improper, but it is very suggestive of the fact of there being a new food supply in this district. Trout have been fairly plentiful in our streams this season, and the returns of catches which we have published have been eminently encouraging to the piscatorial enthusiast, but as yet trout have been regarded amongst us more as a luxury than as an article of ordinary diet. Fresh-water -fish are not yet within the reach of the poor man, unless he helps himself to them by surreptitious and unlawful means. It is a matter of notoriety that many people do resort to irregular methods for obtaining a supply, and in some instances they absolutely destroy the prospect of our ultimately obtaining a new food supply by the ruthless expedients to'which they resort. The end to be kept in view by all interested in pisciculture is not alone providing the means for a healthy and invigorating amusement, for offering to well-to-do people a mild but fascinating pastime, and so attracting to the district that very comfortable and satisfactory adjunct to prosperity which accompanies the presence of travellers with well-liueu purses: the ultimate object is rather to furnish the population of our towns and settlements with a new food supply, which is in very many respects superior to any animal diet now obtainable, One of the admitted errors of the diet of tho colonW is the superabundance of beef and mutton, consequent upon their cheapness. It is some advantage that we have already to counteract this, a limited but fairly regular supply of salt water fish, biit we should undoubtedly he better served in this respect were river trout cheap and plentiful. Fresh water fish are more nutritious, wholesome, and palatable than salt water fish, and the efforts made by the Wellington Acclimatisation Society to stock our rivers, ought to receive the hearty co-oper-ation of every thoughtful settler. We owe our readers no apology for again calling attention by a descriptive article in another column of our ! present issue to the excellent work now being accomplished by the Society, No doubt very many diffi. culties have to be .contended against in stocking the'rivers and streams of the Wairarapa with fresh fish, but the results so far are eminently favorable in spite of every drawback. •