268 U- S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



FISH CULTURE. 



The artificial culture of salmon is carried on in 56 hatcheries, which 

 are distributed in Hokkaido and the prefectures of Aomori, Akita, 

 Yamagata, Niigata, Toyama, Kyoto, Iwate, and Miyagi. Nine of 

 these belong to the government of Hokkaido and other prefectures, 

 while the rest are owned by fishing associations, individuals, or corpo- 

 rations. The number of young salmon distributed by these hatch- 

 eries amounts to over 80,000,000 a year. 



The largest hatchery is the one at Chitose, under the supervision of 

 the Hokkaido Fishery Experimental Station. It was established in 

 1887, and it is estimated that the fish distributed by it number from 

 20,000,000 to 30,000,000 yearly. 



The salmon hatchery of Murakami, Nii^ata prefecture, dates as 

 far back as 1881, when a regulation pertainmg to the preservation of 

 young salmon in the River Miomote was enacted by the prefecture 

 of Niigata. This was first called the "Murakami Salmon Raising 

 Plant," but in 1891 it was turned into a hatchery, and is now dis- 

 tributing 2,000,000 young salmon a year. The salmon hatchery of 

 Nitta River, Fukushima prefecture, is very similar in its history and 

 organization to the above. 



The industry has during the last few years become very popular in 

 Yamagata prefecture, where 22 hatcheries are in operation as private 

 enterprises. 



In the prefectures of Shiga, Miye, Shizuoka, Nagano, Yamanashi, 

 Kanagawa, AJiita, Niigata, Hyogo, Miyazaki, and Hokkaido, the 

 masu (0. masou) and the landlocked hime-masu {0. nerJca) are raised 

 and distributed in the lakes and rivers. There are eight hatcheries 

 working on these species. The hatchery of Lake Towada, Akita 

 prefecture, first transplanted hime-masu from Hokkaido in 1902, 

 and it is now hatching from 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 eggs a year for 

 the purpose of distributing the fish among the different districts. 



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