BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 317 



GRATIFYING RESULTS OF PROPAGATING GERMAN CAKP-BREAItl 

 AND CARP IN PONDS TOGETHER— TAR EE QUALITIES OF CARP. 



By H. B. DAVIS. 



[Letter to Prof. S. F. Baird.] 



I constructed a small fish-pond in February, 1880. For this purpose 

 I drained a valley below a spring of water, clear as crystal, and which 

 flowed into a small creek. Leaving a portion of the undergrowth for 

 shade and feeding-ground, I put into this pond thirty-two carp. A part 

 of them were of the scale variety and some leather. Soon after, as I 

 wrote you on a previous occasion, the dam broke and I lost all except 

 five, four of which were scale carp. When the dam gave way in June of 

 1880 the five fish averaged 11 inches in length. They were about 3 inches 

 long when received three months previously. So much for carp raised 

 partly in northern waters (say, nine months) and partly in southern 

 waters (say, four months). Well, on or about June 1, 1881, I examined 

 this pond which had contained the five carp. Only four large carp were 

 found, three scale and one leather. These measured 18 inches in length. 

 There were several hundred young carp, all about 3 inches in length. 

 I was delighted with this, and went to work to construct other ponds. 

 I built two ponds on a small stream, both fed from a cold clear spring; 

 the upper was a small deep one, and the lower pond covers a con- 

 siderable space, though very shallow, not averaging more than 15 

 inches deep. In April or May of this year I examined these ponds 

 (stocked with the young carp mentioned above) and discovered a great 

 difference in the growth of the fish in the two ponds, and yet it was the 

 same water and the same kind of bottom. The fish in the small deep 

 pond were only 6 or 7 inches in length, while those in the pond below 

 covering about twice the space were 12£ inches long. The bottoms of 

 these ponds were partly sand on the edges and in the center black mud, 

 or swamp muck, as some term it. Both ponds, as in the case of the 



one to recover the whole of his trawls. The trouble is increased, too, because each 

 one of the fishermen, on account of this mixing up of the apparatus, finds his labor — 

 severe enough under the most favorable circumstances — much added to, aud, feeling 

 resentful and aggrieved thereby, rarely hesitates to cut any trawls that be may haul 

 up, and which do not belong to the vessel he does. This "slaughter of gear" if once 

 begun, goes on increasing from day to day, each one, prompted by a spirit of retaliation, 

 soon seeking, rather than evading, the opportunity to destroy the apparatus of rival 

 vessels. It is true that this is not always the case, but it is easy to see that with the 

 utmost forbearance there must, under such circumstances, bo a great loss of trawls, 

 and the result is that the ground soon becomes so covered with a mass of lines and 

 hooks that it is next to impossible to recover a trawl that has been set on it. Tho 

 hooks of the trawls, drawn over the bottom by the current or the struggles of the fish, 

 catch in the lost gear and become so entangled that it rarely happens all can be hauled 

 back. As, however, the lines decay very rapidly on the bottom, tho ground, if de- 

 serted for a few weeks, will be found " clean" again. 



