714 OCEANOGRAPHY 



I should say that practically there is no limit to the demand in the 

 Tokyo market for this fish or the eel. They can be sold in any 

 quantity. The same is true more or less in other parts of Japan. 



Salmon and Trout, "Sake," " Masu," " Benimasu." Oncorhynchus 

 keta (Walbaum); 0. kisutch (Walbaum); 0. nerka (Walbaum). 



The salmon that is most widely distributed and most abundant in 

 Japan is the "sake," or dog salmon (Oncorhynchus keta). It ascends 

 all the rivers of Hokkaido and the northern half of Honshu down 

 to near the Bay of Tokyo, and is one of the most important wealth- 

 producing fishes in Hokkaido. In olden times, when the annual 

 catch was not so great as at the present day, there does not seem 

 to have been any necessity for artificial culture. Still there were 

 some attempts at the propagation of the fish. For instance, on the 

 Sammen River, in the Province of Echigo, salmon-fishing was pro- 

 hibited in a branch of the river, and the salmon which entered it 

 were caught only after they had deposited eggs, and by the daimio to 

 whom the district belonged, thus securing an income for him and 

 some safety for the salmon-eggs. It was a very imperfect method, 

 but still an attempt at propagation, and is even at the present day 

 practiced at the same place. 



The modern method of salmon-culture is taken bodily from the 

 American method, so I can communicate nothing that is new in 

 America. As early as 1876 a Mr. Sekizawa, then an officer of the 

 Home Department, inspected and carefully examined salmon- and 

 trout-culture in America, and on his return started experimenting 

 on them, which was largely imitated in the hope that these delicious 

 fishes might be easily increased and propagated. But these under- 

 takings were mostly on too small a scale and no important results 

 came of them, except that Chuzenji Lake at Nikko was stocked with 

 some American trout about this time and has since become tolerably 

 full of fish. 



Meanw T hile the salmon fishery in Hokkaido was going on upon 

 a destructive scale, and matters came to such a pass in the eighties 

 of the last century that a need of artificial propagation was strongly 

 felt, and an expert of the Hokkaido Government, Mr. K. Ito, was 

 sent over to America to examine into the system of salmon-culture 

 there carried on. On his return Mr. Ito established, in 1888, a hatch- 

 ery at Chitose, on one of the upper branches of the Ishikari River. 

 It was modeled after the hatchery at Craig Brook, Maine. By the 

 efforts of Mr. Ito and his successors and by the able superintendence 

 of Mr. Fujimura, the hatchery, which has been enlarged several 

 times, has, now become the centre of salmon-culture. It comprises 

 an area of over 30 acres, and hatches annually 8,000,000 to 14,000,000 



