PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES. 221 



As stated above, the State aided the work of the United States 

 Fish Commission in a financial way and also by hatching and dis- 

 tributing the eggs turned over to its care. In 1885 the State legis- 

 lature passed a bill authorizing the estabHshment of a hatchery of 

 its own, and the same year such a station was built upon Hat Creek 

 about 2\ miles above its junction with Pitt River, a tributary of 

 the Sacramento River. As the work of the first few seasons devel- 

 oped that the location was unsuitable, the hatchery was removed 

 in 1888 to Sisson, in Siskiyou County. It is now known as the 

 Mount Shasta hatchery. The work of this hatchery was to handle 

 the eggs turned over to it by the United States Fish Commission. 

 It was almost doubled in size in 1917. 



In 1895 another hatchery was built by the State near the mouth 

 of Battle Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River. In 1896 and 

 1897 this hatcher}' was operated jointly by the State and the United 

 States Fish Commission while awaiting the appropriation of money 

 by the commission to purchase it from the State. 



In the fall of 1897 a hatcliery was estabhshed by the State at 

 Grizzly Blufi', on Price Creek, a tributary of Eel River, in Humboldt 

 County, and in 1902 this hatchery made the first plant in the State 

 of steelhead trout fry. In 1916 it was moved to a point on Eel 

 River near Fort Seward. 



Santa Cruz County has had a hatchery at Brookdale for a number 

 of years. In 1911 it was leased to the State and operated by the 

 latter during the seasons of 1911 and 1912. In 1913 the State gave 

 up the lease and entered into a contract to purchase the eggs pro- 

 duced from this hatchery. The price agreed upon was that the 

 State conmiissiun was to pay SI .50 per thousand for the eyed steel- 

 head eggs, up to the number of 2,000,000, and SI per thousand for all 

 eggs up to 8,000,000, provided that the eggs were collected and eyed 

 by a sKilled fish culturist and would pass inspection before they were 

 accepted. In 1916 the State leased the ])lant for a term of years. 



A hatchery was established by the United States Bureau of Fish- 

 eries at llornbrook, on Klamath River, in 1913. At first this hatch- 

 ery was devoted to rainbow-trout work, but later the collection and 

 distribution of silver and cliinook salmon was taken up. 



During tlie fall of 1911 the State established an experimental 

 station at Sacramento in order to carry on a series of experiments to 

 determine whether the eggs of the quinnat salmon could be success- 

 fully hatched and tlie fry reared near the city of Sacramento. Of 

 the fish hatched at this station 50,000 were marked. 



Nearly aU of the fry that were liberated in the Sacramento River 

 were floated in a screen cage by boat into the middle of the stream 

 and there released. N. B. Scofield took 500 in a fioating box down 

 the river, where the}^ were held and fed for several weeks in brackish 

 and salt water. They were apparently not affected by the changes 

 in the salinity of the water. 



Experiments were carried on until the summer of 1913, when 

 they were abandoned due to the killing of the embryos by the min- 

 eral substances in the water used at the station. 



During the fiscal year 1912 the Mill C'reek hatchery of the United 

 States Bureau of Fisheries was operated by the California Conmiission. 



Some years ago the town of l^kiah, Mendocino County, estal)- 

 li>.hed a hatchery 1 mile from the town, and on Russian Rivor. 



