214 DOMESTICATED TROUT. 



Other natural food, are good for the trout. Give them 

 all you can get, which, after all, will not be much, com- 

 pared with the rest of their food, if you have many 

 trout. You can, however, breed maggots for them in 

 considerable numbers by hanging the meat over the 

 ponds and letting the flies work in it. This is called 

 a maggot factory, and, though a good food-producer, 

 especially for yearlings, is to my mind very objection- 

 able about a domestic trout pond. If you have a pond 

 at a distance which you seldom visit, a maggot factory 

 will do very well ; but where you go every day, it is a 

 nuisance. If you do use one anywhere, contrive to 

 cover the meat with a box. This softens the objec- 

 tionableness of it somewhat. 



A few words more should be added here about the 

 care and preparation of the meat, where trout breeding 

 is practised on a large scale. At a trout breeding 

 establishment in full operation there are three distinct 

 sets of fish, the young fry, the yearlings, and the large 

 trout, and there should be a dog. These three sets 

 of trout require three different preparations of meat. 

 For the young fry the liver is used, and is prepared by 

 grating it on a cheese-grater, as described in the chap- 

 ter on young fry. For the yearlings the heart is used, 

 and is cut up in a meat-cutter, which will cut it finer 

 than the sausage-grinder. For the large trout the 

 meat that is left is run through the sausage-grinder, 

 except the coarser parts, which are given to the dog. 

 The heart is used for the yearlings, simply because it 

 will cut up better in the cutter.* 



* The cutter used at the Cold Spring Trout Ponds is Star- 



