But even the charge might be alleviated, if not in great part saved, by good management. For such gross works as this may be put out to undertakers, and you may compute by the solid foot or yard, what the charge will be; and the masters will see the men work, which you cannot do if you are master, and do all by the day. Then, every one delights to have raised walks and terraces about an house and garden; so that the earth being employed in such, and raising mounts in proper places, will produce a real equivalent for the charge: but this is a digression which here I conclude, and return to the affair of fish.
Then considering moats, as commonly they are, it is not expected that the fish should be much at command, because it is difficult, and perhaps not convenient to lay them dry. However, they should be kept full stocked, and will maintain a great many. This will mend your angling, and the fishing with nets will seldom be labour in vain, as certainly it will prove if under stocked. These waters will receive a great share of your fry and stores that are superfluous, and so preserve them.
If a moat come to be laid dry, as will be necessary sometimes to keep it from turning all to mud, after you have by a sluice or cut, drained the water as low as you can, make dams with boards and clay, and ram them to be water-tight; so you may toss the water out of one division to another, and take out the fish in good order; but if you dry all together, you will not be able to secure all; besides, having one division full of water, you can relieve the fry and eels by letting it upon them; which else, for want of a fresh to let in upon them, will be lost. So when one division is fished, that is relieved by tossing the water out of the next. And this course is not amiss, though you intend to throw out the mud; for the saving the fish while you are taking them out, quits the charge of making the stanks.
You must have other waters besides stews, to assist in the disposition of the fish; for laying a pond in that great order dry, as I propose, once in every year, there will be a great quantity of fish to be disposed; so that you must have a sufficient quantity of waters to receive when you abound, and to recruit when you want. The stews will carry sixty, seventy, or eighty carps apiece, supposing you spend continually out of them; so other waters will receive their proportion, by sending this way and that the stock of fish, you will preserve all, and know where to find them again.