vi PREFACE. 



so frequently, that much time and some pains are required to 

 put the inquirer on the right road to success. The two little 

 essays which have appeared in the American Angler's Book, 

 and the fact of my having engaged in the business since its 

 publication, has made me the recipient of numerous letters 

 and caused a voluminous correspondence. This has also been 

 the case with my friend Stephen H. Ainsworth, who informs 

 me that the aggregate time employed by him in answering 

 letters and writing essays since he commenced his experiments, 

 would amount almost to a year. 



For want of directions as to the details of breeding and 

 rearing trout, inexperienced persons who have commenced it 

 have met with difficulties ; which has discouraged others who 

 were anxious to engage in the business. With the pushing 

 disposition and impatience of many of our countrymen, they 

 frequently ignore the fact that in experiments we learn as 

 much from errors as success. In view of these facts bearing 

 adversely on this new branch of industry, and with a wish to 

 promote it, I have, at the solicitation of several friends who 

 sympathize in the desire to foster it, given all the necessary 

 details to insure success in the culture of our brook trout ; 

 being assisted, as the reader will find, by one who is as well 

 versed in the art as any of those whose names have become 

 prominent in this respect in France. I have also, as the 

 reader will find in the following pages, drawn largely on my 

 experience at the establishment I inaugurated in Warren 

 county, New Jersey. 



The artificial propagation of migratory fishes which enter 

 our rivers, is destined to be the principal means by which we 

 are to restock our exhausted streams, and restore those that 

 are rapidly declining, to their former fecundity : as well as in 

 naturalizing valuable species in waters where they have hith- 



