245 



Now, with reference to the Michigan Fish Commission : we feel as though we 

 had done a very good work in whitefish hatching. I was looking over reports com- 

 ing down here ; 1 found in the summary of fish planted in the last ten years, it 

 amounts to more than five hundred million whitefish. That is a very large show- 

 ing, but when you consider that more than half of it has been done within four 

 or five years, you will see that we have not yet come where we can feel the full 

 effect on the great lakes. In the same time we have planted nearly a hundred 

 million of the wall-eyed pike. We have within the last two years doubled the 

 capacity of our Detroit Fish Hatchery. We have now 1,050 jars. When those jars 

 are filled we can distribute 160,000,0(>0 of whitefish. We have this last year se- 

 cured an appropriation of the legislature to establish a hatchery in the upper penin- 

 sula, and we have a hatchery there, all ready to do its wotk this fall with 300 jars. 

 That increases our capacity nearly a third, so that if the ova can be obtained to fill 

 our hatcheries, we are able to plant nearly two hundred million whitefish a year 

 in our lakes. Do you know it takes to fill our thousand and fifty jars, a hundred 

 bushels of whitefish eggs ? From the same jars, and in the same hatchery, and 

 with the same force of men with which the whitefish are hatched and planted, we 

 hatch all the wall-eyed pike we can get after the whitefish have gone out. We 

 have been able to hatch but part of our house full. We can impregnate of the 

 whitefish between ninety and ninety-five per cent, of the eggs taken, and we will 

 hatch those eggs with a loss of from ten to twelve or perhaps fifteen per cent., still 

 ■of the wall-eyed pike our loss is forty per cent perhaps ; and with a view of discov- 

 ering the source of that loss and remedying it, if possible, we have spent a consid- 

 erable sura of money in the employment of a scientist and microscopist to attend 

 the men in their work to discover what there is about the wall-eyed pike egg that 

 makes it so difficult to impregnate and hatch in comparison with the whitefish. 

 Those of you who have seen our report for last year have seen something of the 

 work of tiiat scientist, because in the appendix there is quite a long article des- 

 eribing the development of the wall-eyed pike, and of course in addition to that 

 he has given us many additional practical suggestions with reference to the best 

 way to handle the eggs. 



Gentlemen, when you realize that the State of Michigan, (only one of the 

 several bordering States I grant you, but the one in the Union most of 

 all interested in the great lakes because she is surrounded by a coast on all sides, 

 having upwards of two thousand miles of coast) ; when you realize that that 

 amount of work can be done by the State of Michigan to-day, with her plant in 

 the shape it is, you will recognize why the people of the State of Michigan are loath 

 and reluctant to have any part of that work given up to anybody else. We invite 

 the co-opex'ation of anybody ; there is no question but that there is a field there for 

 everybody. There is a field in these great lakes for all the money that can be 

 gotten from the public for the hatching of fish for these great lakes. Why, we 

 have only commenced the work! There is no room in our own government for 

 any jealousy or wish to supplant anybody else, every State that has a coast border- 

 ing upon these lakes ought to be interested enough to expend money enough to 

 provide for the hatching of these fish. It can be done now at small expense ; it 

 is not a matter of large outlay that requires the central government to take hold 

 of it. 



I don't know but I have trespassed longer, at least than I expected to, but I 

 ■desire to be heard furtlier on that general subject before the meeting shall close, 

 and with these remarks I will leave the question. 



Chairman: Discussion is open to any gentlemen who wish to be heard. 



