42 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 



the Bureau's hatcheries is unequal to the demand, and resort must 

 be had to private hatcheries for some millions of eyed egfjs that are 

 required each season. The price paid for these eggs has risen from 

 30 to 40 cents per thousand in 1912 to 75 and 80 cents per thousand 

 in 1920, with every indication that it will advance still further. This 

 supply is uncertain and frequently of inferior quality, owing to the 

 fact that many commercial trout breeders engage in the work with 

 the main object of supplying fish for the market, the production of 

 eggs being incidental. In these establishments the fish are put on 

 the market after their first spawning, and it is well known that eggs 

 taken from young fish are never equal in quality to those obtained 

 from 3 to 5 year olds. From every standpoint it is highly de- 

 sirable that the Bureau should have a source from which brook- 

 trout eggs in sufficient numbers may be obtained to meet all require- 

 ments and relieve it of dependence on the high prices and inferior 

 stock of the commercial dealers. After a consideration of this sub- 

 ject, York Pond, in the White Mountain National Forest Eeserve, 

 N. H., was selected as a site for the development of a source of 

 supply for brook-trout eggs. A camp was established and prelim- 

 inary work on the project undertaken during June, 1920, and allot- 

 ments of fingerling trout were planted in the pond during that 

 month. With the cooperation of the State of New Hampshire by 

 the enactment of legislation giving the Bureau control of the pond, 

 which is approximately 19 acres in area, and of the Forest Service 

 in maintaining roads, it is expected that the full development of 

 this body of water will enable the Bureau to produce large numbers 

 of brook-trout eggs of a high quality and at reasonable cost. 



Landlocked-salmon propagation, conducted principally from the 

 station at Green Lake, Me., and its subsidiary at Grand Lake 

 Stream, was rather more successful than in the previous year. The 

 output was 1,641,905 eggs, fry, and fingerlings. Green Lake, one 

 of the sources of eggs, was at an unusually low IcA^el, and the fish 

 were unable to ascend the tributary streams for spawning. The eggs 

 secured at this point were from fish caught in pound nets in the 

 lake. Of the eggs distributed 417,105 went to the State of Maine, in 

 fulfillment of the agreement by which the eggs taken by the Bureau 

 on the Fish Kiver Lakes are to be eyed at the Caribou State hatch- 

 ery, and one-half the net collections become the property of the State. 

 The work in this field suffered from lack of competent employees. 



The group of stations at which both salmonoid and pond fishes are 

 handled includes those at Wytheville (Va.), White Sulphur Springs 

 (W. Va.), Erwin (Tenn.), iSTeosho (Mo.), and Manchester (Iowa), 

 where the output is derivable almost entirely from brood fish main- 

 tained from year to year in artificial ponds. The aggregate produc- 

 tion of these stations in 1920 was, in round numbers, 3,225,000 brook 

 and rainbow trout and 240,000 bass, while there remained on hand 

 at the close of the year 234,000 fingerlings available for distribution 

 and for increasing the breeding stock. While a number of untoward 

 conditions have tended to curtail the yield of these stations, consid- 

 erable progress has been made in improving their physical condition 

 and in securing a better quality of brood fish. The output of both 

 brook and rainbow trout at White Sulphur Springs was the largest 

 in the history of the station ; the Manchester station largely increased 



