'At 



' J 'Ithaca 



Syracuse 



Cortland 



ALBANY) 



Cortland Station was authorized by act of 

 Congress in 1930, and in a quarter of a cen- 

 tury this small establishment has made a 

 considerable contribution to fish culture in 

 general and trout fishing in particular. 

 Here, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the New 

 York Conservation Department, and Cornell 

 University cooperate in a program that com- 

 bines a production hatchery that collects 

 trout eggs and rears trout for stocking, an 

 experimental hatchery and nutrition reseaixh 

 laboratory, and a fish-culture training school. 

 Area of the station is about 100 acres. The 

 hatchery receives water from excellent 

 springs that furnish a constant supply at 

 47° F., for hatching trout eggs. 



PRODUCTION 

 HATCHERY 



Cortland collects brown-trout eggs from 

 brood fish kept in the station's brood ponds. 

 Recently the spawning season of these trout 

 has been pushed forward by the use of arti- 



ficial light. Note the covering over one of 

 the brood ponds. Brown-trout eggs have 

 been supplied by Cortland to Fedei-al and 

 State hatcheries in 25 States. 



The station rears brown trout, and also 



rears brook trout and rainbow trout from 



eggs supplied by other Service hatcheries. 



Most of the trout dis- 



DISTRIBUTDON 



2,000,000 



I 

 1.500,000 



'AA '46 'le '50 '52 '54 



6/!0tVAl 



Tuour 



eSeS — DISTRI&UTIOH 



tributed by Cortland 

 go to stock State-man- 

 aged streams and 

 lakes in New York 

 west of the Hudson 

 and in a few adjacent 

 Pennsylvania coun- 

 ties. In recent years, 

 more and more of 

 these fish have been 

 planted as legal-size 

 trout rather than as 

 fingerlings, to give fishing opportunities to 

 an increasing number of anglers. Rearing 

 trout to legal size takes longer hatchery 

 care — and costs more. 



Cortland's production facilities also sup- 

 ply trout of the sizes and species needed at 

 the station for study under controlled 

 conditions. 



NUTRITION 

 LABORATORY 



The Cortland Trout Nutrition Laboratory 

 was instituted in 1932. Trout hatcheries 

 needed feeding formulas that were less ex- 

 pensive but just as efficient, or better, than 

 the diets they were using. Some of the com- 

 ponents of older diets were diflScult or expen- 

 sive to store. In ponds and raceways at this 

 station, many foods have been tested in terms 

 of production, growth, and mortality of fish. 



When new products, like pellets — compressed 

 feed mixtures — come on the market, they are 

 tested on trout held here. 



So successful has its nutrition research 

 been, that "the Cortland diet" is a common 

 reference at trout-culture stations every- 

 where. 



In its annual reports, Cortland makes 

 available the results of its experiments to de- 

 termine the effects of various substances on 

 trout. The vitamins needed, the levels at 

 which these should be fed, the digestion and 

 use of fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and min- 

 erals, the cause and prevention of nutritional 

 deficiencies, the effects of foods on the chemi- 

 cal composition of the trout's body : these are 

 a few of the topics on which the laboratory's 

 biochemists have already reported. 



Since more efficient use of foods must be 

 based on better understanding of the trout's 

 physiology, the laboratory studies the body 

 processes of trout. What happens to its 

 blood when the trout feeds on sugar? on fat? 

 or on starch? Is there a change in the blood 

 when the fish receives a salt bath ? What ef- 

 fect has dissolved oxygen on the red-cell con- 

 tent of the blood ? What changes occur in the 

 presence of enzymes? What identifying 

 stains can be used safely on trout? What 

 factors are involved in trout coloration? 

 Answers to questions like these will affect 

 more than the feeding practices in a hatch- 

 ery ; they will influence the spawning opera- 

 tions, water use, pond construction, and many 

 other phases of hatchery management. 



FOOD ALLOWANCE TABLE - BROWN TROUT 



Q>£/iC£NTA6E OF BODY we/GMf) 

 POUNDS OF FOOD FOR lOO POUNDS OF FISH 



