ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION i8i 



The conditions \vhi( h I have indicated largely prevail in the West of 

 Scotland, and it is there, and in any similarly circumstanced district, 

 that hatcheries would serve a practical and useful purpose. 



1 have here and there in this book referred to points which might 

 appropriately fall within a chapter devoted to artificial propagation, 

 and I shall ask the reader to bear such points in remembrance. My 

 present purpose is rather to give a brief description of a hatchery which 

 is at the moment in active operation, and an account of the method 

 adopted to secure the ova of wild fish with which to stock it. I had 

 already, some years ago, written such an account, at the request of Mr. 

 P. Jeffrey Mackie, for his very practical and wholly admirable volume, 

 " The Keeper's Book," and, as Mr. Mackie has very kindly given me 

 the fullest discretion in the matter of utilising that account here, I shall 

 avail myself of the permission so generously given me to repeat much 

 of what I then wrote. If I do not actually use quotation marks to 

 identify any particular passages, it is because I may see reason to 

 amplify some points, or insert fresh observations, but, on the whole, I 

 think I cannot improve much upon the account which I formerly wrote. 



That account dealt specially with the Hatchery which the Loch 

 Lomond Angling Improvement Association, with the concurrence of 

 the proprietor of the Luss Estates, installed at Luss in 1903, and in 

 which each season some 300,000 eggs of salmon, sea-trout and trout 

 are treated. As relative to the text I reproduce a plan of the hatchery 

 and append a specification showing the actual initial cost of erection. 



The essential requisites of a hatchery, then, are obviously land and 

 water, the first if possible conveniently close to the dwelling of the 

 prospective hatchery manager, and the .second ample in quantity. For 

 the site, any gentle sloping plot of ground upon which a wooden house, 

 20 ft. square, can be erected will do. If the subsoil is porous so much 

 the better, but if not, a gravel foundation can easily be laid. The water 

 supply is a more important consideration. It must be ample, pure. 



