REPORT OF THE COMMISSION'ERS OF FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 177 



will practically exterminate minnow food, if nothing else is offered, but they 

 appear to be unable to exterminate crayfish, and for this and other reasons, to be 

 touched upon later, crayfish food should be provided in all waters containing black 

 bass, if they are expected to thrive. In nature's distribution of black bass. New York 

 State was omitted, except in waters having connection with the Great Lakes or the 

 St. Lawrence. The building of the Erie Canal, about 1825, brought black bass from 

 Lake Erie to the Hudson River and to the waterways having connection with the 

 canal throughout the central portion of the State. From the Hudson, black bass were 

 conveyed to Saratoga Lake, near Saratoga Springs, and thereafter this lake became a 

 sort of central distributing point, from which the fish spread well over the north- 

 eastern part of the State. In 1850, Mr. Samuel Tisdale procured black bass from 

 Saratoga Lake and transported them to a pond near East Wareham, Mass., and there 

 this fish made its first appearance in the New England States. The spread of black 

 bass through the waters of New England from the initial plant in Flax Lake, East 

 Wareham, is not subject-matter for this paper, but New England is indebted to the 

 waters of the State of New York for the introduction of black bass through Mr. 

 Tisdale's efforts, for, I believe, it was not until about twenty-five years later that black 

 bass were taken directly to the State of Maine by the late George Shepard Page. In 

 the mean time, the East Wareham fish have spread as far as the southern part of the 

 Fine Tree State. 



From Saratoga Lake black bass were conveyed to Effner Lake, in Saratoga 

 County, with an outlet into the Sacandaga River, a tributary of the Hudson. From 

 Eflfner Lake the bass were taken to Schroon Lake, in Warren and Essex Counties. 

 The dam at the outlet of Eflfner Lake was destroyed, and the bass found their way 

 into the Sacandaga and down that stream into the Hudson, below Luzerne. Gradually 

 they worked down the Hudson, over dams and falls, until they joined their brethren 

 above and below Troy. The falls at Luzerne proved a bar to their upward movements, ■ 

 but they worked down from Schroon Lake through Schroon River into the upper 

 Hudson, destroying the trout fishing as they advanced, and finally the upper Hudson 

 and its tributaries were as well stocked as the lower ri\-er. Then came the era of 

 straw paper, and paper mills sprang up everywhere and poured lime into the streams, 

 and the black bass and other fish were practically destroyed where paper mills 

 held sway. 



In the mean time the stocking of small streams and small ponds with black 

 bass was being prosecuted with vigor. It was such a simple matter to catch a few 

 black bass, put them alive in a bucket and carry them to a near-by water and deposit 

 them. There was a black bass craze; waters wholly unfitted to the fish were planted; 

 trout waters were destroyed, for no judgment was exercised in the general black bass 

 12 



