THE BLACK BASSES. 6i 



The first experiment in their transportation seems to have been that 

 mentioned by A. M. Valentine, who states that a pond near Janesville, 

 Wis., was stocked with Black Bass about 1847. In 1850 Mr. S. T. Tis- 

 dale carried twenty-seven Large-mouths from Saratoga Lake, N. Y. , to 

 Flax Pond, in Agawam, Mass. The manner in which the Potomac was 

 stocked with Small-mouths is also well known. It was in 1853, soon after 

 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was finished, that Gen. Shriver, of 

 Wheeling, carried a number of young fish from the Ohio to Cumberland, 

 Md., in the water-tank of a locomotive engine. These he placed in the 

 basin of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, whence they soon penetrated to 

 all parts of the Potomac basin, and as far down the river as Mount Ver- 

 non. The custom of stocking streams soon became popular, and through 

 private enterprise and the labors of State Fish Commissioners nearly 

 every available body of water in New England and the Middle States has 

 been filled with these fish. This movement has not met with unmixed 

 approval, for by the ill-advised enthusiasm of some of its advocates a 

 number of trout streams have been destroyed, and complaints are heard 

 that the fisheries of certain rivers have been injured by them. The 

 results have been on the whole very beneficial. The Bass never will 

 become the food of the millions. The New York market receives proba- 

 bly less than 10,000 pounds of them annually, and they are nowhere very 

 numerous. Yet hundreds of bodies of waste water are now stocked with 

 them in sufficient numbers to afford pleasant sport and considerable 

 quantities of excellent food. 



The flesh of the Bass is hard, white and flaky, and not particularly re- 

 markable for its flavor. When sufficiently large, it is perhaps better that 

 it should be broiled, and served with white sauce. The smaller Bass may 

 be treated as pan-fish. They are not well suited for broiling, except in 

 the hands of the most judicious of cooks. 



The Black Bass is one of the most universally popular of American 

 fishes. Even those who know the joys of trout and salmon angling do 

 not disdain it. For one man who can go forth in search of salmon, and 

 twenty to whom trout are not impossible, there are a thousand who can 

 visit the Bass in his limpid home. There are many methods of angling 

 for Bass. Those who use rod and reel are perhaps not unreasonable when 

 they profess to pity their uncultured brethren who prefer the ignominious 

 method of trolling with hand-line and spoon-bait. 



