BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 355 



ACCOUNT OF OPERATIONS AT TBIE NORTBITIIiEE FISH-HATCHING 

 STATION OF TUBE UNITED STATES FISBI COMMISSION, FROM 1S74 

 TO 1882, INCLUSIVE. 



By FRANK W. C1LARK. 



[Written by request of Prof. S. F. Baird, for the London Exhibition, 1883.] 



It will be admitted without argument that nature, unaided by art, is 

 wholly unable to furnish food for the sustenance of the human race. 

 The necessities of existence have therefore always driven man to the 

 culture and development of those kinds of animals and plants that are 

 able to supply him with the means of subsistence. Science has pointed 

 out the laws which govern the myriad orders of life, and by the aid of 

 this knowledge we are able to multiply in vast ratios all the varieties of 

 animal and vegetable nature necessary to meet our requirements. Until 

 within comparatively few years the attention of mankind in this direc- 

 tion had been expended almost wholly upon the culture and propaga- 

 tion of land products. That portion of human food found in the paths 

 of the sea and rivers of the earth had been left wholly to the care of 

 nature, man not deeming it within his power to materially aid nature 

 in this department of her supply. Somewhat recent investigations, 

 however, have revealed the fact that some of the largest and most im- 

 portant fisheries of the world must soon cease to operate, for a time at 

 least, unless some artificial means be devised for counterbalancing the 

 vast drainage which is rapidly depopulating lakes, rivers, and seas of 

 their inhabitants. 



That such means have been discovered and successfully applied is 

 abundantly demonstrated by the history and work of pisciculture. A 

 single incident will well illustrate this statement, for it is only a sample 

 of the success which, as a rule, has everywhere attended this science. 

 I was myself personally cognizant of the facts in the case, and therefore 

 can speak with definite knowledge. It is a well-known fact that forty or 

 fifty years ago shad were so abundant upon our Atlantic coast tbat they 

 were "caught by the million in many bays and mouths of rivers." As 

 early as 1860 it became alarmingly evident that this great source of 

 revenue to the country would soon be cut off, for the fish were not only 

 no longer abundant, but it was becoming hard to obtain them even as a 

 luxury. I was on the Connecticut River in 1873, and I could not obtain 

 shad for less tfcan one dollar apiece. In 1871, and again in 1872, several 

 millions of young shad were liberated at the mouth of the Connecticut 

 Eiver. In 1874, three years' time, the most marvelous results were 

 manifest. Those first set free began to return. It was reported by 

 fishermen "that for twenty years such shoals of shad had not been seen 

 approaching the land, and vessels which had come through the neigh- 

 boring sound reported also great shoals which stood towards the mouth 



