496 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



tliese boxes a layer of fine sand was placed to serve as a receptacle for 

 the roe ; on this bottom the impregnated roe was placed, and the whole 

 apparatus put in a place where the roe was exposed to a constant stream 

 of fresh water. The development and hatching of the roe usually took 

 Xilace after three weeks, but a month was required for hatching all the 

 eggs. This invention, which was a progressive step in the art of pisci- 

 culture, w\as improved in 17G1 byTa new hatching and incubating proc- 

 ess. At that time artificial hatching-boxes were introduced, consisting 

 of wooden boxes with perforated sides, in which branches were stuck. 

 At the spawning-season, fish of both sexes were put in these boxes ; 

 thereupon the spawners were taken out, aud the branches covered with 

 the spawn Avere placed in boxes in sucli a manner as to avoid all con- 

 tact between the eggs. 



The discovery of artificial incubation belongs to a Frenchman, Dom 

 Pinchon, (Bulletin of the Imperial Society of Acclimatization, 1854, p. 

 80,) and the construction of artificial spawning-boxes was invented by 

 a Swede, (Lund, of Linkoping;) the third and most important dis- 

 covery, viz, that of artificial fecundation, was made by Ludwig 

 Jacobi, a land-owner of Lippe-Detmold, (ITll-'Sl,) who has left us an 

 account describing his method very much in detail. This work may 

 serve as a manual of practical pisciculture. The process of fecundation 

 discovered by Jacobi, and known as "moist fecundation," is at the 

 present day in vogue in most of the foreign establishments of pisci- 

 culture. In Russia the so-called process of "dry fecundation" is mostly 

 employed. Both will be described below. 



Jacobi's discovery w'as very little known till 1840, when a strong 

 impetus was given to this industry in consequence of experiments in the 

 artificial propagation of fish made in France by the fisherman Joseph 

 E6my and his friend Gehiu. These experiments attracted the attention of 

 the government, which shunned no expense aud appropriated large 

 sums for founding the establishment at Hiiuiugen, placed at first under 

 the direction of Berthot and Detzem, and finally confided to the care of 

 the celebrated Coste. Through the influence of this establishment, 

 which soon placed itself on a commercial footing and made it an object 

 to sell fecundated eggs and fry, pisciculture developed very rapidly; and 

 there is at this day scarcely a country where this industry is not known 

 and does not attract the attention of laud-owners. In Eussia, the 

 number of piscicultural establishments increases every day, in spite of 

 the country's great wealth of fish. 



Among these establishments, that of Nikolsky, located in the village 

 of the same name, (province of Novgorod, district of Demyansk,) takes 

 the first place, on account of its extent, its excellent technical arrange- 

 ment, and, finally, by its method of fecundating eggs. 



The establishment of oSfikolsky belongs to the government, and is 

 under the department of agriculture and rural industry. 



In order to get a clear idea of all the operations of pisciculture, it will 

 be necessary to consider each separately. 



