BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 55 



However, last fall I saw them peddled througli the streets, and the 

 fishermen told me they could catch scarcely any other kind, and they 

 sold as well as perch or bass. I have not had an opportunity to taste 

 any of them, therefore am no judge of their flavor. 

 Respectfully, 



E. E. SHEARS. 



SUOOESTIOIVS TO FISH CUL,TURISTS. 

 By OARRICK M. IIARDIIVO. 



Wilkes-Barre, Pa., January IG, 1880. 

 Prof. Spencer F. Baird, 



 U. 8. Commissioner of Fisheries : 



My Dear Sir : In reply to your esteemed favor of recent date, per- 

 mit me to say that for ten years past and upwards public attention has 

 been largely directed throughout the Northern States of the Union to 

 the subject of fish-culture. Formerly the interest felt in this matter 

 was mostly confined to sportsmen, bat the rapid increase of population, 

 the growing necessities for food, added to the fact that our forests were 

 fast i^assing away, our mountain streams and wooded lakes denuded of 

 their shade and converted into other than purely nature's uses, have, alto- 

 gether, awakened a general interest in the subject. While the actual 

 number of those personally engaged in fish-culture is limited, yet the 

 whole mass of our peojile may be said to be looking now with encour- 

 aging favor upon the enterprise. 



Indi^iduals associate together in a sort of quasi corporation and -pur- 

 chase ponds and inland lakes, rent creeks and even small rivers, stock 

 them with fish of various kinds, always observing, however, adaptabili- 

 ties both as respects the waters and the fish. Thus sport and supply 

 go hand in hand, i^or are the owners or controllers of such waters 

 alone benefited. These ponds and inland lakes are the sources which 

 make up the rivers that flow, often in large volume and for great dis- 

 tances, through the country to the sea. They too become stocked, teem 

 with choice fish. The public at large thus have brought within their 

 reach, without cost, the sport and supply which, in the beginning, 

 seemed designed only for the few. 



In order to have the most satisfiictory results from this system of 

 buying or controlling ponds and inland lakes, experience has shown 

 that the outlets should be secured by a galvanized-wire screen of a mesh 

 not greater than three-quarters of an inch in size. If brook trout, black 

 bass, or pickerel be the fish with which any such water is stocked, the 

 small fry, appearing generally the first year but surely after the second, 

 will find their way through the meshes of the screen in numbers suffi- 

 ciently great to stock abundantly in three or four years every comming- 

 ling and suitable water below. Brook trout, however, should never be 



