1883.] TROUT BREEDING. 125 



in earnest in the matter and can you attend to it yourself ? It is 

 useless for any man to begin at all unless he can answer this in the 

 aflBrmative. 



The location should be where there is a never failing stream of 

 water; either brook or spring water will answer, only be sure there 

 is always enough of it. There should be fall enough so that ponds 

 can be built off from the main stream, and high enough to be out 

 of danger in time of freshet. The ponds (for business) are built 

 in this way and the water brought to them by means of a pipe or 

 ditch. Here is the hatching-house, a building say sixteen by 

 forty feet, large enough to accommodate 100,000 eggs, and 

 supply nursery room for 10,000 young trout till they are several 

 months old. Next the ponds for adult fish as near the hatchery 

 as possible. Say two of them; the first for two years old fish, ten 

 by forty, and four feet deep, the second for older fish of twice the 

 capacity of the first. A stream of fresh unused water should run 

 through each. These ponds are small, but for business they are 

 none too small. The fish must be where they can be fed and 

 handled easily. If they are deep enough the trout will continue 

 to grow for several years. The ponds for the young fish, till they 

 are a year old, can be made in the hatching-house. There should 

 be two of them made of pine plank, matched and made perfectly 

 tight. Millions of young trout are lost, and the owners may never 

 know how, by using faulty ponds for the fry. The outlet screens 

 must be very fine, eighteen or twenty threads to the inch, and per- 

 fectly fitted. The material for the larger ponds does not matter so 

 that they are made tight and below the surface of the ground. The 

 screens can be made of wood slats or of coarse wire cloth. 



When the trout go into the nursery ponds they are about an 

 inch long. At the end of the first year, when they are let into the 

 second pond they are about five inches long on an average, though 

 there wiU be great difference in their size. I know of no way of 

 making them grow alike. At the end of the second year they 

 probably weigh from one-quarter to one-half pound each. They 

 are then let into the last pond. 



TAKING OF THE SPAWN. 



The eggs of the trout are about one-sixth of an inch in diame- 

 ter, the eggs of the three and four years-old fish being usually 

 considerably larger than those of the younger. I have known of 



