THE RIBBLE SALMON FISHERIES. By A.T.R. Houghton, M.C., M.A.

1952 1st edition. 8vo (145 x 222mm). Pp125. B/w photographs, charts (one folding) and end-paper maps. Green cloth, spine titled in gilt.

"It is a far cry from 1811, the year of the formation of the first 'Association for the Preservation of Game and Fish in the Neighbourhood of the Rivers Ribble, Hodder, and Calder', to the present day when effective control of the river is exercised by a new Lancashire Rivers Board. Mr. Houghton has rescued from obscurity many forgotten facts and has set them in order, bringing to task more than twenty years experience of river management. Nevertheless, the book is no mere historical record but a factual account of the river and its tributaries in relation to the fisheries. Methods of fishing, obstructions in the shape of weirs and traps, water pollution and abstraction, and the development of control, are all dealt with, and there are particularly important chapters on the revival of the fisheries following the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act of 1923, and on the value of the fisheries at the present day". Chapters include: The Ribble from its source to Preston; In tidal waters: the Ribble below Preston; The Hodder from Hodder Foot upwards; Geology and early history; Methods of fishing; Bessowe Caul - a fishing weir; Later obstructions; Annual close times; The first association formed, followed by a fishery board; Buckland's visit and the weirs at Settle; Grimble's summary; Calder, Darwen and Douglas: industrial pollution and attempts to combat it; Water abstraction and its effect on fisheries; The Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act, 1923, and the renaissance of the fisheries; The present value of the fisheries.