"Esteeme a little of fish": fish, fishponds, and farming in eighteenth-century New England and the Mid-Atlantic.
Prior to the advent of scientific aquaculture in the mid-nineteenth century, English farming manuals of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries instructed American colonists in the "art of husbandry," imparting advice and passing on the best-known strategies for keeping and rearing fish in enclosed ponds. The development of such ponds in the New England and Mid-Atlantic colonies during the eighteenth century marked the culmination of a long process by which British-American colonists adapted to declines in natural fish populations brought on by over-fishing and disruption of habitat by water-powered mills. The development of private fishponds as an increasingly important component of American mixed husbandry practices in long-settled areas by the end of the eighteenth century illustrates early American farmers' ability to successfully adapt to self-wrought changes in their physical environment.
Northwestern University
Strother E
SE
Roberts
D000383:Agriculture / Q000191:economics / Q000193:education / Q000266:history; D000822:Animal Husbandry / Q000191:economics / Q000193:education / Q000266:history; D000818:Animals; D017756:Aquaculture / Q000191:economics / Q000193:education / Q000266:history; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history; D005398:Fisheries / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history; D005399:Fishes; D005523:Food Supply / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history; D049671:History, 18th Century; D008873:Mid-Atlantic Region / Q000208:ethnology; D009511:New England / Q000208:ethnology; D012423:Rural Health / Q000266:history; D012424:Rural Population / Q000266:history; D014481:United States / Q000208:ethnology
D004785:Environmental Pollutants