THE HISTOEY OF FISH-CULTURE. 509 



exclusively a commercial one ; i. e., the sale of fish raised in the estab- 

 lishment, particularly to the two capitals, Moscow and St. Petersburg. 

 But after it became the property of the government, the establishment 

 has in pisciculture assumed the same place as a model-farm iu agricul- 

 ture, or an acclimatiziug-garden in horticulture. 

 Three methods are known of propagating new species of fish : 



1. The transportation of grown male and female fish to a certain given 

 locality. By this means salmon and salmon-trout have, in 1852, been 

 introduced in Lake Peipus; but by this means but a very limited 

 number of fish can be propagated in a river or in a lake, as, on account 

 of the vast extent of these natural reservoirs, there is very little chance 

 of the two sexes meeting at the proper season and in a favorable place, 

 so that this method is far from insuring the multiplying of the species. 



2. The transportation of fecundated spawn by natural means from 

 one reservoir to another. This method is often followed, and in many 

 cases it leads to good results ; but it could not be applied under all cir- 

 cumstances, for many fish spawn at a great depth, or iu inaccessible 

 places. 



3. The transportation of spawn that has been fecundated artificially. 

 This method answers the purpose best. 



The establishment of Nikolsky is in a locality which communicates 

 with the basins of the Volga and the Ladoga. It is only one verst (five- 

 eighths of ^ mile) from Lake Velio, which, through small rivers and a 

 lake, communicates with Lake Ilmen. These rivers are the Yavon, the 

 Polla, and Lake Seligher, which, through the Selijarooka Eiver, has a 

 communication of about sixty miles. in leu gth with the Volga. Thus 

 the establishment combines the climatic conditions of ^the basins of the 

 Volga and the Ladoga — conditions which are very favorable to the accli- 

 matization of fish from one basin to the other. The common lavaret, 

 for instance, does not exist in the basin of the Volga, while it abounds 

 iu that of the Ladoga; the latter, on the contrary, has no sturgeon, 

 while these are very common in the Volga. The establishment has, 

 therefore, made it its object to spread in the basins of Russia those species 

 of fish which are wanting, but which, as far as the quality of the water 

 and the climate are concerned, might be introduced there, and which, by 

 their price, might offer great advantages to fishing-industry. With 

 this view, the introduction of lavarets into the basin of tbe Volga was 

 undertaken. Numerous species of this fish, as we have said above, are 

 found in the basin of the Ladoga, while in that of the Volga only a single 

 one is found, the large and excellent species of white lavaret, called in 

 Russian "Belorybitsa." As the place of transportation. Lake Seligher 

 has been selected, where every year several thousand lavarets one and a 

 half vershock to three vershocks (two and a half to five inches) in 

 length are let loose. 



The success of this attempt can no longer be doubted, considering 

 that the fish loosened in the Volga constitute the second generation of 



