WINTER MEETING. 275 



Igan, working apon purely scientific lines, discovered that the presence 

 of corn starch in the spawning pan would neutralize the adhesive ten- 

 dency of eggs of this class without in the least damaging their vitality. 

 A fish-culturist, following the hint of Reigard, discovered that com- 

 mon muck from the river banks would replace the corn starch with 

 even better results. At once the possibilities with the heavy, adhes- 

 ive eggs (to which class your jack salmon belongs) rose from a prob- 

 lematical thirty to a positive eighty per cent. 



The semi-buoyant eggs, or those whose specific gravity is but 

 slightly greater than that of water, require altogether other treatment. 

 They are necessarily placed together in large numbers, and it was soon 

 discovered that to prevent their settling on the bottom of the recept- 

 acle it was necessary to introduce a gentle current from below. It 

 would be tiresome to you to attempt any description of the gradual 

 evolution of the apparatus which has come into general use, and yet 

 more so any description of its management. 



For many years the introduction of fresh and withdrawal of stale 

 water from the apparatus containing floating eggs seemed an insur- 

 mountable problem. Like many other problems in practical fish cul- 

 ture it was solved by t'^ie late Commissioner, and like most of his 

 solutions the apparatus offered was so simple and the governing prin- 

 ciple 80 well known that men marveled the discovery had been so long 

 delayed. 



Here are a few notes on what has been accomplished in the domain 

 of public fish culture : 



In the Sacramento river and its tributaries about 15,000,000 young 

 salmon have been hatched and planted. So great has been the benefit 

 of this restocking of the Sacramento that the statistics of the salmon 

 fisheries show that the annual catch from that river has increased 

 5,000,000 pounds each year during the last few years. For three- 

 quarters of a century the sea-going salmon had disappeared from the 

 Connecticut river. The U. S. Commission succeeded in reintroducing 

 it, bringing the eggs from Maine. Going a step further, they intro- 

 duced the same fish into the Hudson river, so that appreciable quan- 

 tities have been taken in the neighborhood of Albany and Troy. 



The Government hatcheries at Alpena, Mich., Duluth, Minn., and 

 Sandusky, -O., are annually returning to the great lakes from 300,000,000 

 to 500.000,000 young white fish. Some years since, the fishermen of 

 the great lakes admitted that but for public fish culture half of them 

 would be obliged to abandon their calling. 



Instances of great improvement might be cited in connection with 

 nearly every shad river in the United States. In the Potomac river 



