378 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



fish are to be met. Within recent years the output of smallmouth 

 bass at hatcheries in the east has been almost negligible. 



Very little difficulty is experienced in producing the various species 

 of trout in sufficient numbers to meet requirements, owing to the 

 fact that they can be hatched artificially and fed on beef liver or 

 other food until they attain fingerling size; but this is different with 

 the basses. These fish prefer live food; they must be allowed to 

 reproduce under more or less natural conditions in specially pre- 

 pared ponds, and the output of a season depends largely upon cli- 

 matic conditions prevailing during the spawning season. 



COST OF DISTRIBUTION 



In recent years the office of distribution has economized to the 

 utmost, and if the constantly increasing demands for fish are to be 

 satisfied, additional funds must be provided. Before the World 

 War as much as $80,000 was expended in distributing the bureau's 

 annual output of fish and fish eggs. That the cost of distribution 

 can not be reduced below the amount at present allowed is evi- 

 denced by the heavy shipments that are now being carried to a trip. 

 With the view of accomplishing as much work as possible on the 

 allotment provided, messenger shipments in baggage cars have been 

 made exceedingly heavy. In 1914. at a time when the cost of every- 

 thing entering into the work was comparatively low, the year's out- 

 put of 4,047,643,417 fish and fish eggs was distributed at a cost of 

 $68,399.93. The past fiscal year's output of 5,232,373,000 fish and 

 eggs — more than 1,000,000,000 in excess of the output in 1914 — was 

 distributed for $58,000, approximately $10,000 less than the amount 

 expended in 1914. 



In 1926 the bureau honored 13,118 applications for fish and made 

 deliveries on 12,000 applications. In making the distributions the 

 cars traveled 84,600 miles and the detached messengers 403,000 

 miles. 



In distributing the fish produced at the bureau's stations the prin- 

 cipal part of the cost involved is in the shipment of the fingerlings 

 intended for stocking interior waters. The expense of distributing 

 the output of stations handling marine and anadromous species and 

 the fishes of the Great Lakes region is comparatively small. The 

 records show that in 1914 the output of the most expensive fishes to 

 distribute — landlocked salmon, rainbow trout, brook trout, large- 

 mouth black bass, and smallmouth black bass — aggregated only a 

 little more than 24,000,000, while in 1926 nearly 40.000,000 of such 

 fishes were shipped. Furthermore, the trout distributed in 1926 

 were larger in the main than those distributed in any previous year 

 in the bureau's history. 



The cost of distributing one thousand 4-inch fish is at least five 

 times greater than the amount involved in distributing an equal 

 number of fry; but, on the other hand, the stocking value of the 

 larger size is estimated to be ten times greater than that of the same 

 number of fry. In view of this fact it is advisable to rear as many 

 of the fish as possible to the stage where they will be able to care for 

 themselves in their new environment, even though it costs more to 

 distribute them. In fact, it would be good policy to limit the out- 

 put of all cooperative stations to the number of fish that can be 

 reared to a length of 3 or 4 inches before disposing of them. 



