Part III.] Pond Fish Culture. 113 



crappie lived. Young bass are also weak when small, and are 

 liable to drift with the current, but we did not find them, as we 

 did the crappie, drifting against and adhering to the fine wire 

 screen gates. After they attain a length of over an inch and a 

 half both bass and crappie will swim against an ordinary cur- 

 rent, and they are frequently found with heads pointed up- 

 stream in places where the water is coming into the ponds 

 rather than where it is flowing out. 



Raising Crappie. 



We have never tried to feed young crappie. The fact of the 

 matter is, we see very little of them. However, we have been 

 very successful in raising them in ponds without feeding. 

 Where there is a natural food supply for them we especially 

 recommend the crappie as a good pond fish. They do well in 

 the Hatchery ponds. We have raised to the age and size of 

 yearlings as many as 30,000 fish in an acre of water. They 

 were raised by placing from fifty to sixty spawners in the acre 

 of water and leaving them there for a year. Goldfish and 

 Bluegill sunfish were placed in the same pond with them to 

 serve as food fishes, with the result that about 15,000 yearling 

 goldfish and Bluegills were taken from the pond with the 

 30,000 yearling crappies. The crappie fed on the other fish, 

 but 15,000 escaped. 



If a few thousand of these yearlings, all kinds, could be 

 placed in a pond by themselves where there was plenty of 

 food, in two or three years' time there would undoubtedly be an 

 abundance of fish in the pond for table use. Spawning Blue- 

 gills and goldfish placed in the pond with the crappie could be 

 made to produce much of the food supply for raising the crap- 

 pie. The size of the fish when two or three years old would 

 depend largely upon the food supply. While young crappie 

 €at insects and many small forms of animal life found in the 

 water, the larger specimens are fond of small minnows, young 

 fish, and various kinds of crustaceans and insects. 



The crappie are not usually considered cannibals, and do not 

 €at their own kind except when food is very scarce. We have 

 found out here at the Hatchery that when young crappie, 

 taken from the ponds in the fall, are placed with those that are 

 a year older, the older fish will devour the younger. They will 

 also devour young bass that are a year younger than them- 

 selves. This took place where food was scarce owing to the 

 fact that there were entirely too many fish in the pond in pro- 

 portion to the food supply. However, we have kept one- and 

 two-year-old crappie together successfully when there was a 

 good food supply of minnows and the young of other fish, and 

 we are still of the opinion that the crappie is not a cannibal 

 f!xcept when hard pressed by hunger. If young goldfish and 

 other young fish, as well as minnows, can be had in addition to 



