TROUT INTRODUCTIONS INTO KINTYRE
IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Ronald J. Roberts.
Howietoun Fish Farm at Bannochburn, Stirling, was
the world's first scientific research fish farm, and the improved trout fry
produced there by the founder, Sir James Maitland bart. of Sauchie and Barnton,
found their way all over the world.
The author's own interest in the farm was first kindled
with the stocking of Auchalochy, Loch Ruan and the Lussa Reservoir with fish
from Howietoun in the 1950s. However, much earlier stockings of Kintyre waters
were made and the late Captain John Galbraith of Polliwilline well remembered
as a boy in Machrihanish in the early years of this century, taking heavy
buckets of fish up to Killypole Loch with the assistance of the Howietoun
attendant who had accompanied the fish all the way from Stirling by train,
steamer and horse-drawn cart.
More recently the Kintyre Fish Protection and Angling
Club purchased Howietoun fish to stock the Lussa Reservoir when it was impounded
in the 1950's and also carried out stockings of Auchalochy after it had been
enlarged to provide the water supply to Campbeltown in 1954.
Recently the Howietoun fish farm came into the hands
of the University of Stirling, and extensive restoration of this monument
to Victorian biological science has allowed it to become once more the source
of brown trout as well as salmon smolts for fish farms.
Recently the bound volumes of the correspondence between
Sir James Maitland, and his clients, beautiful copperplate writing, as easy
to read today as when it was written, have been presented to the University
by Mr. Alexander Bullock, the former owner of the farm (and incidentally
the proprietor of the Lussa fishery at Peninver) and these very valuable
records of the start of scientific aquaculture have been catalogued by the
Scottish Records Office and are preserved in the Archives of the University
of Stirling.
This has provided me with the opportunity of investigating
the role of Howietoun in stocking lochs in Kintyre in the late 19th Century,
when the Victorian field sports enthusiasts were carrying out their
"improvements." The farm became fully productive in 1881 when what is still
the biggest brown trout hatchery in the world, with capacity for twenty million
eggs, was opened, but even before then Captain Scarlett, of the 5th Dragoon
Guards was writing to enquire of Sir James his price list and whether he
would be able to supply fish to Kintyre, North Britain. Captain Scarlett
is a slightly mysterious figure. He was obviously a close friend of the
MacDonalds of Largie, and Mr. John Maxwell-MacDonald of Largie well remembers
him, a Colonel by this time, with his steam yacht "Snapshot," in his youth.
His letters were variously written from Macharioch House, Gortinane, Gigha
House and Limecraigs, Campbeltown. Always, with a military man's precision,
he required exact details of sizes, routes by which fish would arrive and
how many men, horses and carts etc. he should arrange at each staging post.
For his first delivery he enquired about supply of fertilized
eggs or ova, and since he considered the price of £7 10s. for 16,000
delivered by Steamer to Tarbert satisfactory, he ordered these from Macharioch
House for delivery to Mrs. MacDonald of Largie. He also requested Maitland
to forward a copy of his pamphlet on eggs and their care and husbandry to
Mrs. MacDonald so possibly he was assigning to her the responsibility for
them. By February he was getting worried about caring for so many eggs and
reduced the order, by telegram to 4,000 only, but he did enquire about supply
of young fish as well - 3-5 inch fish possibly to place in the two or three
lochans at Largie, which are still known as the "fish tanks," for
on-growing.
By March he was starting to panic - the young fish were
hatching and he needed to feed them. I shudder to think how Mrs. MacDonald
coped with Maitland's instructions that they should be fed on boiled egg,
liver and Thames worms, minced together. Obviously however, she coped, because
by 25th April, Maitland's secretary was writing to say how glad he was that
they had been successful with the fry.
Captain Scarlett was obviously keen, after this first
success, to go further and arranged, from his London address, in Queen's
Gate, to meet Maitland and discuss stocking policy. Unfortunately his original
idea to bring in a large number of trout fingerlings from Howietoun was hindered
by MacBrayne's refusal to allow transport of 5 cwt tanks on the fast steamer
service to Tarbert, and so he had to arrange transport by cargo steamer.
They were then off loaded to horse panniers for delivery to the lochs for
which they were intended. We have no record but it seems likely that their
destinations were the Mill Loch and Druimyeonbeg in Gigha, and Garasdale,
and possibly Uligadale at Largie.
Captain Scarlett in 1883 had concern about the difficulties
of transport to Gigha and requested an attendant to accompany his five tanks
of fingerlings. The fish cost £20, the total carriage from Stirling
was £1 and the attendant's fare 12sh 6d. Later Captain Scarlett ordered
a small number of one year old fish - the American brook trout presumably
for Gigha. In the paper on The Freshwater Fishes of Kintyre, Dr. J.A. Gibson
and Mr. Duncan Colville record the stocking of Loch Ciaran with brook trout
shortly after the First World War, but to my knowledge no fish now remain
from either of these stockings.
In 1887 Captain Scarlett telegraphed Mac Brayne to accept
20 tanks of fish, total weight some 30 cwts, and requesting 5 carts or 2
(presumably horse-drawn) lorries for transfer between East and West Loch
Tarbert. Unfortunately they all died during transportation - no doubt Mr.
David MacBrayne received a telegram demanding recompense in proper military
terms. The efforts of Captain Scarlett and Mrs. MacDonald to get their fish
to Kintyre were often extremely arduous in those days of poor roads and
horse-drawn vehicles with no oxygen for life support. Fish culture is now
undergoing a renaissance in Kintyre, and today's practitioners have a fine,
example from the work of Captain Scarlett and his intrepid friend, Mrs.
MacDonald.
Stirling
University of which Professor R. J. Roberts is the Director of the Institute
of Aquaculture, is at present carrying out a study of inbreeding within fish
in some Kintyre waters.
No. 14 Autumn 1983
Page 2: The Campbeltown Canal // Kintyre's Age of the Train
Page 3: An Eighteenth Century Library
Page 5: John Smith D.D. // Dr. Norman Macleod
Page 6: C.B.A. Scotland Summer School 1985
Page 7: The Rev. B.B. Blackwood // Some Former Campbeltown Industries // Nostalgia // Contra Account
Page 8: By Hill and Shore - from Mr. Angus Martin
Page 9: Campbeltown
Nicknames // From a Wee Toonsman Down Under // A Recent Find //
Emigrants to America
on the Diana // Coincidences // One Hundred and Eleven Years Ago
Page 10: The Gigha Fishery in the Early Eighteenth Century