PROPAGATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES, 1923. 67 



realized on the consignment. The two lots of fish were kept separate 

 to the end of the fry stage, when they were thrown together owing 

 to lack of space and because there appeared to be no advantage in 

 their further segregation. For some time after commencing to feed 

 the fish continued to develop normally, but in the latter part of March 

 mortality suddenly increased, the daily death rate rising from about 

 134 per day to a maximum of 4,500 per day during April. 



The disease could not be checked by any of the methods usually 

 and sometimes successfully employed, and the losses up to the time 

 the disease had run its natural course amounted to 151,255, or about 

 40 per cent of the fry hatched. No satisfactory explanation of this 

 heavy mortality can be given, though the fish-culturist in immediate 

 charge of the work has advanced the theory that surface drainage 

 frorn the melting of an unusually heavy fall of snow may have 

 carried into the spring supplying the hatchery water some substance 

 deleterious to young fish. In support of this theory he cites similar 

 conditions as to snowfall that existed in the fiscal year 1919. Dur- 

 ing that year disease broke out among the trout fry and caused an 

 even greater mortality. 



In December, 1922, two consignments of rainbow-trout eggs aggre- 

 gating 108.500 were received from the Wytheville (Va.) station. 

 Being of inferior qualitj^ these eggs sustained a loss of almost 

 40,000. or about 37 per cent, up to the hatching period, and subse- 

 quent losses among the fry and fingerlings so reduced the stock that 

 only 45.900 fingerlings were realized, of which number 1,500 were on 

 hand at the close of the year. Early in May a consignment of 

 500,000 eyed pike-perch eggs arrived from the Put in Bay (Ohio) 

 station. Though delayed in transit the eggs were of exceptionally 

 fine quality and from them 485,000 vigorous fry were hatched and 

 distributed. 



Nothing in the way of the much-needed repairs and alterations re- 

 ferred to in previous reports has been possible at this station, the 

 only construction work accomplished during the year being of a 

 minor routine character. Since the bureau acquired title to the 

 Berkshire property in 1915 it has not been possible to divert a suffi- 

 cient amount of the reduced appropriations from other and more im- 

 portant work to place the station in the condition in which it should 

 be maintained. At the present time much of this property, especially 

 the pond system, is very much dilapidated. The need is for sufficient 

 funds to completely rebuild and rearrange the pond system, which 

 was originally designed for private use and never intended for the 

 production of fish or eggs on the extensive scale required in the 

 bureau's work. While it is recognized that the work of this station 

 can neA-er be made to compare favorably with that of stations more 

 advantageously located with reference to water supply and certain 

 other essentials, it is apparent, ncA^ertheless that if certain changes 

 and improvements can be effected the station can, under skillful 

 management, be made to play an important part in fish-cultural 

 work and can be depended upon to produce for local distribution at 

 a moderate cost certain species of fish that are now being furnished 

 from more distant hatcheries at considerable expense and with some 

 difficulty. 



