i6 



must be observed and imitated in order to attain 

 any real success in any of the artificial processes ot 

 fish culture. Allow me here to relate a bit of my own 

 experience in trout-breeding, as I feel confident you 

 want facts. In the year 1872, being then fully 

 engaged in experiments connected with the breed- 

 ing of white fish, and only having saved a limited 

 supply of the ova of brook trout, I arranged the few 

 I had (about 2,500) in hatching-boxes in such a 

 manner that when hatched out they could take pos- 

 session of an adjacent pond, 14 x 45 feet in size 

 and two feet deep. 



These eggs received but little attention during 

 the winter ; they were late in hatching; and about 

 April 1st, I observed for the first time numbers of 

 them swimming about in a lively condition, their 

 yolk sacs having almost entirely disappeared. 



These active little fellows, about 2,000 in all, 

 were allowed to remain there entirely unfed and 

 uncared for until about September 15th, at which 

 time they had attained a size far beyond any I had 

 ever seen. I never saw a dead one amono- them, v 

 It will be borne in mind that this pond was spring- 

 water, about one hundred feet from the spring and 

 of a temperature of about 55 . 



This was the same water in which I had experi- 

 mented three or four years previously, in raising 

 brook trout by following Seth Green's book on "Fish 

 culture," feeding the young fish on lobered milk, 

 chopped liver, etc. These fish I did not succeed nearly 



