THE HISTORY OF FISH-CULTURE. 469 



rieiire, (departuient;) the Sarthe 297 francs in Le Mairie et Loire ; and tlie 

 Loiret 309. La IMayenne produces 339 francs, and the Seine 498. As 

 for the Mairie, it produces the exceptional sum of 1,378 francs. By the 

 side of these figures, more or less satisfactory, many others attest, on the 

 contrary, the extreme scarcity of fish. The Ain, in the .Tura, produces 

 only 14 francs to the kilometer ; the Dordogne, in the department of 

 La Correze, 10 francs; the Isere, 8 francs; the Drome, 4; and the Durance, 

 2. Finally, 219 kilometers have been depopulated to that point that 

 they cannot be let at any price. 



This marked inequality in the revenues of several rivers, which offer 

 in general similar conditions to the fish, or whose different conditions can 

 be ditferently improved, seems to indicate that the evil, even where great- 

 est, is not irreparable. The proprietors, injured by the impoverishment 

 of the fisheries, and the government itself more interested than any- 

 body in the products of the rivers, have yet remained along time inact- 

 ive under the laws which they are sustaining. The remedy has 

 been decided upon only after the reiterated solicitations of naturalists, 

 who, long since masters of a process of artificial multiplication, have 

 felt that it might be usefully api)lied to the repopulating of rivers and 

 ponds. The first experiments have given results sufliciently remarka- 

 ble not to discourage farther attempts. The practical methods have 

 been promptly developed, and scientific researches skillfully conducted 

 have impressed a new character upon pisciculture ; that is, the branch 

 of rural economy which is occupied with the improvement of waters. A 

 very general interest is now felt in this important question of the arti- 

 ficial multiplication of fish, which belongs at once to the natural sci- 

 ences, to agriculture, and to political economy. The result of the ex- 

 periments which, since the end of the last century, have had for their 

 object the restocking of rivers,' already forms a curious chapter of zoo- 

 logical history ; and while awaiting its increase bj' some new pages, it 

 appears to us desirable to reunite its scattered elements. 



I. 



The first attempts at pisciculture were made by the Chinese and the 

 ancient Romans, and it is probable that they were preceded by their 

 elders in civilization. We have no positive data as to the epoch in whicii 

 the Chinese commenced these experiments; but everything tends to 

 show that they reach back to the most remote antiquity. We find in the 

 " Histoire generale des voyages," (1748,) in Grosier, in Davis, as M. Chev- 

 reul has already pointed out, and in most of the works which treat of 

 Chinese customs, some curious details on the transport of the spawn of 

 fish. According to the missionaries who have visited China, a multitude 

 of salmon, trout, and sturgeons mount into the rivers of Kiang-si and 

 into the ditches which are dug in the middle of the fields to preserve 

 the water necessary to the production of rice. They deposit their eggs 



