332 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



is very small and is lost on the fourth clay. In spite of all these pecu- 

 liar difficulties, the transportation of young shad has been successfully 

 carried on in America. Seth Green made a successful introduction of 

 shad into California in 1871, and later Livingston Stone in 1873. The 

 first grown shad was during this year caught in the Sacramento River, 

 and the lucky fisherman received the State premium of $25 for it. 



As the American pisciculturists are well acquainted with the difficul- 

 ties attending the transportation of young shad, it was to be expected 

 that Professor Baird would commission competent and experienced men 

 to convey the first shad to Germany, and Messrs. Mather and Anderson 

 have certainly done everything in their power to justify the confidence 

 placed in them. It must here be mentioned that both these gentlemen are 

 experienced pisciculturists, the former possessing a piscicultural estab- 

 lishment of his own for brook-trout, (Salmo fonlinalis,) near Honeoye 

 Falls, on the Honeoye Creek, a tributary of the Genesee River, fourteen 

 miles south of Rochester, in the State of New York ; while Mr. Ander- 

 son is successfully raising black bass (Grystes nigricans) and salmon- 

 trout (Salmo confinis) at Groton, near New London, Conn. Both these 

 gentlemen are several months during the year engaged by the United 

 States Department of Fisheries to transplant young fish, and possess an 

 experience of many years, especially regarding the transportation of 

 shad. 



Mr. William Clift, in July, 1872, succeeded in transporting a large num- 

 ber of shad to the Platte River, in Colorado, and, though of course losing 

 quite a number, in planting the majority near Denver; and Mr. Mather, 

 before undertaking the journey to Germany, had just returned from Des 

 Moines, Iowa, where he had planted 90,000 shad for stocking the Mis- 

 sissippi. During the railroad journey of seventy-two hours, only 200 

 out of this large number had died. Both these gentlemen received their 

 commission by letter from Professor Baird, and had just enough time to 

 hasten to New York to receive the fish at the Grand Central depot and 

 to take them over to Hoboken on board the Douau by express. 



These fish came from the piscicultural establishment for raising shad 

 which the State of Massachusetts established some years ago near 

 Holyoke, on the Connecticut River, and which has been instrumental in 

 re-stocking that river with shad in the most astonishing manner. This 

 requires no expensive buildings, but only very simple appliances, which 

 consist in 200 wooden boxes, 2 feet long and 1£ feet broad, open at the 

 top and having a wire-net at the bottom, being placed in the river. 

 These boxes receive the impregnated eggs and protect the young fish 

 till they lose their umbilical bag. The shad-raising establishments of 

 the State of New York, on the Hudson, ten miles below Albany, and that 

 on the Potomac near Washington, are similarly orgauized. The young 

 fish scarcely two to three hours old were shipped by railroad from Holy- 

 oke on the 1th August, at 2.30 p. m., and arrived in New York at mid- 

 night, via Hartford and New Haven Railroad, in a healthy condition, in 



