FISH CULTURE—MELLISH. rare 
salmon, shad, and some other fish, in seeking the river where 
they emerged from the ege and were deposited after being 
hatched, in order to spawn, after having acquired their wonder- 
ful growth in salt water, renders it possible not only to re-stock 
a depleted river, but to introduce a larger run of fish than orig- 
inally frequented the river. Salmon will seek their native 
water, even if only asmall stream. It is computed that 90 p.c. 
of the ova is lost when the spawn is deposited in the river, and 
that 90 p.c. is hatehed when deposited in charge of the fish 
breeder. 
Fecundated fish spawn has been an article of traffic among 
the Chinese from time immemorial. The Romans, who, as 
their old writers inform us, used fish at their tables of various 
kinds and of the choicest quality, resorted to artificial culture to 
supply the demand. We are told that Lucullus, at his house at 
Tusculum, on the shores of the Bay of Naples, dug canals for his 
fish ponds to the sea; that fresh water streams were led into 
these canals; that sea fish having passed up into the ponds and 
deposited their ova were prevented from returning to the sea by 
flood gates ; and that the yearly value of the fish kept in these 
ponds amounted to a sum equal to $250.000. After the fall of 
the Roman Republie fish culture does not seem to have been 
practiced until the 14th century, when Dom Pinchon, a monk of 
the Abbey of Reome, bred fish in wooden boxes. He was the first 
who expressed the ova and applied the male milt toit. The ends 
of these boxes were of wicker work, their bottoms being covered 
with sand on which the ova were deposited. An interim seems 
to have ensued when no interest was taken in the art. In 1763, 
Jacobi, a German, began experiments which he carried on for 
thirty years. Others soon took an interest in the matter, and 
about the year 1834 Messrs. Shaw and Young, of Scotland, bred 
salmon in wooden boxes. Joseph Remy, a French peasant, suc- 
cessfully experimented in 1849 in re-stocking with young fish 
many depleted rivers and streams. During the past twenty 
years salmon culture has been carried on with great success in 
Scotland and Ireland. In many cases large fortunes have been 
accumulated in the business by private individuals. Consider- 
