74 AMERICAN FISH CULTURE. 



at moderate rates, it is the cheapest strictly animal food for 

 a large number of fish. 



When trout are raised in ponds of the dimensions I 

 have given, it is evident that little or no dependence is to 

 be placed on natural feed, such as flies and their larvae. 

 Hence, the necessity of providing curds, or liver and lungs 

 of animals at prices that will not cause too great an expendi- 

 ture for the value of the crop. I have found that the curd 

 from the milk of one cow which gave fourteen quarts, 

 would feed bountifully a thousand or twelve hundred trout, 

 averaging five-eighths or three-quarters of a pound ; the 

 smallest being seven inches long, and the largest from two 

 to three pounds in weight. The food should be chopped 

 or crumbled to the size of peas. 



In feeding, a good plan is to have a piece of timber 

 extending over the pond ; the person giving the food stand- 

 ing on it, thus familiarizes the fish with their presence. 

 They soon become acquainted with sounds or objects on 

 the bank which indicate an approaching meal. The sight 

 of a person with a basin or crock, or the sound of the chop- 

 ping hatchet, causes a great commotion in the finny com- 

 munity; when a handful is thrown in, heads, tails, and 

 bodies immerge in an upward shower. When they are fed 

 from the cross-timber, they soon become so tame as to take 

 the food from one's fingers with risk to the feeder, how- 

 ever, of receiving some severe scratches or bites from their 

 sharp teeth. 



The larvae of the common green fly, known as maggots, 

 are hatched in putrid flesh or animal offal from May to 



