XXI.-THE HISTORY OF FISH-CULTURE. 



A— THE HISTOEY OF FISH-CULTURE IN EUEOPE FROM ITS 

 EARLIER RECORDS TO 1854.* 



By Jules Haime. 



Fisheries have ofteu been called the agriculture of the waters, as if 

 seas, lakes, and rivers were inexhaustible store-houses of food, Avhere, 

 without fear of ever impoverishing them, man might continue to take 

 and destroy forever, bounded only by his wants and desires. This defi- 

 nition is false, because founded on a false view of the case. Fishery is 

 not the agriculture of the waters; itisouly theharvesting. The waters are 

 a source of production extremely powerful, but by no means infinite ; 

 and that the harvest may be always certain and abundant, it should be 

 prepared by regular sowing, if it is true, according to the expression 

 of M. de Quatrefages, that fish may be multiplied by sowing in the same 

 manner as grain. 



This would appear unnecessary pains, if we were to consider only the 

 very greatfecundity of almost all the aquatic tribes. A perch of moderate 

 size contains 28,320 eggs, and a'herring 36,960. 



Thomas HarmerfandC.F. Lund| haveobtaiued, by untiring researches, 

 still higher numbers from other species, e. g., 80,388 and 272,160 for the 

 pike; 100,300 for the sole; 71,820 and 113,840 for the roach; 137,800 

 for the bream; 383,250 for the tench ; 546,680 for the mackereL A carp 

 weighing 3 kilograms (66 pounds) contained, according to Petit, 

 342,140 eggs. A flounder has given the enormous figure of 1,357,400. 

 There have been counted in a sturgeon as many as 7,035,200, and Leeuwen- 

 hoek has found 9,344,000 in a codfish. Finally, M. Valenciennes § has just 



*Ia the Revue des Deux Moudes, June 15, 1854, Paris, wae published an article on 

 Pisciculture, by Jules Haime, 'a trauslation of which, by Mr. Gamaliel Bradford, 

 appeared in the Report of commissioners appointedunder resolve of 1856, chapter 58, [of 

 the legislature of Massachusetts, 1 concerning the artificial propagation of fish, with 

 other documents, Boston, 1857. 



As the most complete paper published on this portion of the history of fish-culture, 

 and as a suitable introduction to the account of methods iuuse in the United States, it 

 is here reproduced.— S. F. Baird. 



t Philosophical Transactions Royal Society of London, vol Ivii, p. 280, 1768. 



t Memoirs of the Swedish Royal Association of Sciences, vol. xxiii, German ed., p. 192, 

 1761. 



§ Valenciennes and Fr6my. Researches on the composition of eggs in the series of 

 animals. Academy of sciences, March 20, 1854. 

 S. Mis. 74 30 



