Ixvi EEPOET OF COMMISSIONEE OF FISH AND FISHEEIES. 



and brouglit home 182,000 eggs, which were hatched in various local- 

 ities, principally at his establishment in Charlestown, IST. H. Some were 

 hatched by Mr. Brackett, one of the commissioners of Massachusetts^ 

 and turned into the Merrimac Eiver in that State. Others were intro- 

 duced near Cape Cod. Two thousand of the young fish, of the lot 

 hatched by Mr. Stone, were introduced into West Eiver and the 

 Winooski, in Vermont; and a few of the lot were subsequently iden- 

 tified. 



In 1839 Mr. Hagar, of Vermont, obtained 4,050 of the eggs from the 

 Miramichi, 80 per cent, of which were hatched out at Chester, Vt., and 

 introduced into tributaries of the Connecticut. 



In 1870, according to Dr. Edmunds, 8,000 eggs were seat to him from 

 the Miramichi Eiver, which were distributed to the commissioners of 

 Maine and Connecticut; Mr. Clift, of Mystic Bridge, also received a 

 few. 



In 1870 the fish commissioners of Maine and Connecticut purchased 

 from Mr. Wilmot's establishment, at New Castle, Ontario, 18,000 eggs, 

 which were hatched and distributed. 



In 1871 Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut jointly built a salmon - 

 breeding establishment on the l*enobscot Eiver, at Orland, placing it 

 under the charge of Mr. Atkins ; and from this a reasonable supply was 

 received. The first operations for hatching fish on a large scale were 

 those of Mr. Atkins, at Bucksport, in Maine, in 1872, when the aggre- 

 gate subscriptions of the States were supplemented by an equal amount 

 furnished by the United States Fish Commissioner, (page xviii.) It would 

 therefore seem, as stated by Dr. Edmunds, that it is to Dr. William W. 

 Fletcher, of Concord, that we owe the first practical success in introduc- 

 ing salmon into American waters, before destitute of them, by transfer- 

 ring the properly-impregnated ova from localities where they abound to 

 salmon-breeding establishments, whence they were distributed to their 

 destination. It is, however, to the method adopted by Mr. Atkins, 

 (whether his own device, or that of some one else, I am unable to say,) 

 ^n penning up the mature fish, on their entrance into the rivers, and 

 keeping them until their eggs are ripe, that we owe the possibility of 

 carrying on the work on a large scale. 



A dependence upon the salmon-eggs to be furnished from British or 

 Canadian waters would have been entirely futile, since the authorities 

 as well as the people of the Dominion have always looked with great 

 jealousy upon the efforts made by the United States to obtain eggs 

 within their borders, this, in fact, having been prohibited by positive 

 enactment. It was, therefore, only within the waters of the United 

 States that such efforts could be carried ou without interference, and 

 the plan referred to, of penning up the fish and keeping them, has 

 placed within our power the means of securing, with the least possible 

 trouble and expense, as many eggs as can conveniently be manipulated. 



To bring up the history of American salmon-culture to the date when 



