WATER CULTURE COMPARED WITH LAND CULTURE. 03^ 



river set about his operations in May, 1857. He had little diffi- 

 culty in catching ripe fish and none in extracting the spawn, to 

 which he was accustomed from handling trout, although he after- 

 ward ascertained that the true time to take the parents was at 

 night, from eight to twelve P. M., as they seek the spawning beds 

 principally during the dark, but he soon found other and more 

 serious troubles. He naturally pursued the same method he had 

 followed with the trout, placing the impregnated eggs in a trough 

 and turning on a gentle current of water. What was his surprise, 

 however, when he saw all the eggs wash out over the lower end 

 of his trough. Here was the first striking difference, whereas 

 trout eggs are almost as heavy as shot. The ova of shad have 

 little more specific gravity than water, and will nearly float of 

 themselves. Then he reduced the current and the eggs all died. 

 This was failure number one He next tried leaving them in a 

 pool near the shore, where there was no change of water, and 

 found the eggs all opaque and lifeless next morning — failure num- 

 ber two. He then built a low dam of small stones so as to make 

 a pond in the course of the current, and so that the water would 

 find its way through the crevices, but still only a trifling quantity 

 hatched— failure number three. He next tried boxes, putting 

 wire sieving over the ends and the bottoms and the sides, but in 

 vain, till he was almost in despair, and the season had nearly 

 reached its close. Then fortune favored him. He happened to 

 be standing in the water experimenting with a box that had the 

 wire sieving on the bottom, and which was filled with eggs, and 

 accidentally elevated the front end so that the. current struck the 

 bottom at an angle. ' He observed that some of the eggs lying in 

 the lower end were lifted and kept in motion like the bubbles boil- 

 ing up in a tea-kettle; he elevated the further end a little and 

 more eggs boiled up ; he raised it still further and they all com- 

 menced boiling madly, although the water did not pass over the 

 top of the box at the lower end. The question was solved, and 

 thereafter shad hatching was a certainty and a success, and no 

 ordinary success either, for while of trout and salmon nearly ten 

 per cent, are lost even now with dry impregnation, with shad the 

 loss is so trivial that, practically speaking, absolutely all are 

 hatched. 



Mr. Green felt jubilant, but he was by no means out of the 

 woods. He soon had his boxes filled with young, for instead of 

 taking months, like salmon, shad issue from the egg in few days, 



