188o.] TROUT BREEDING. 133 



hatched out. Some of them have been hatched perhaps two 

 weeks, and some of them, I presume, have hatched shice I 

 started from home. There is very little difference in the size 

 of them yet, but as the sac becomes absorbed, they will in- 

 crease quite fast. 



Dr. Goodrich of Vernon. I would like to inquire what 

 effect artificial food has upon the taste of trout, as compared 

 with the trout we catch in our streams ? 



Mr. Hodges. I think it injures the quality of the fish. I 

 know there are a great many things that enter into that. 

 When I go fishing, and come home hungry as a bear, as 

 every man does, if I have happened to catch any fish, when I 

 have them cooked, they taste mighty good. But if I take 

 them out of my ponds, I do not have to work very hard to do 

 it, and that makes a little difference. I would like to be able 

 to say that my fish taken from the ponds are just as good as 

 those taken from the brooks, but I cannot say it. I think the 

 meat of the brook-trout is of a better texture, is much finer, 

 and there is a gamey taste to it that we cannot get in trout 

 grown in ponds. 



Mr. S. KiMBERLEY of Gosheu. If you put those fish in a 

 fish-pond when they are two years old, will they taste as good 

 as brook-trout, or will they live with the fish in that pond ? 



Mr. Hodges. If you should put in a few young fish, you 

 would never find any of them. If you should put in a hun- 

 dred thousand of them, two years hence you would find a few 

 of them, and tliey would be nearly as good as brook-trout. 

 Still, it would be a point on whicli all would not agree. I 

 think the brook-trout would be preferable, then, to the lake- 

 trout. 



Mr. . I know of a pond where there used to be 



trout ; it is fine spring water ; but they have all run out since 

 pickerel and bass were put in the pond. 



Mr. Hodges. Most ponds are muddy, and the mud eventu- 

 ally hurts the fish. 



Mr. Myrick. What is the expense of starting in trout- 

 breeding ? 



