252 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



tain nutriment cnouglj, and determines to feed upon heart or liver or 

 beef. In order to get this hue enough he chops it up with an old razor 

 or -vvith a chopping-machiue or cleaver, and feeds it to the trout. That 

 is, he throws it into the water for them to eat if they are willing, or if 

 they can. We can see the trout eating greedily, and we also see falHng 

 upon the bottom a large proportion of the food which it appears the 

 trout reject. Let us take a little of the preparation he is feeding and 

 examine it. In most cases we shall find that it is composed of a few 

 very fine particles mixed with a number of larger in the i>roportion of 

 about one particle of the fine to ten coarse. As young animals of all 

 kinds eat more in proportion to their size than older ones, we should 

 expect the young trout to eat voraciously. One hundred mouthfuls per 

 day for each one would not be perhaps too large an estimate. These 

 mouthfuls must be no larger than the size which a little trout can con- 

 veniently seize and swallow, {for very young trout less than the one- 

 thirty-second of an inch in diameter,) as trout do not bite their food, 

 but swallow it whole. Then, in order to give these ten thousand fish 

 one hundred mouthfuls each per day, a quantity of liver must be divided 

 into one million i)articles, each one-thirty-second of an inch or less in 

 diameter, and all the larger pieces left in are not only a total loss, but 

 so much positive damage, as they tend to foul the water. That the 

 reason of failure lies in a lack of properly-divided food, we should also 

 judge from a comparison of the results of feeding other fish. The (true) 

 salmon, salmon-trout, white-fish, and herring belong to the same family 

 of fish as the brook-trout, and the methods of hatching, feeding, &c., 

 are similar. Of these the salmon makes the largest fish when the sac 

 is absorbed, and is the least difficult to raise. The salmon-trout is next 

 in size, being generally twice as large as the young trout, and 95 per 

 cent, is not an unusual average to raise. On the other hand the 

 white-fish and herring make very much smaller fry than the brook-trout, 

 and we have never succeeded in raising any of them by artificial feed- 

 ing, and have never heard of any one who has succeeded. In all our 

 exi)erience we have found that he who has had the patience and skill 

 thoroughly to feed his trout has always raised them, and all others have 

 failed. This extreme care and delicacy in feeding is only required dur- 

 ing a few weeks, as the larger the trout grow the less finely divided do 

 they require their food. But it is just in those few weeks that the fail- 

 ures occur. Nor should the feeding be intermittent, as a day or two of 

 starvation will not add to the general health of the stock. Men succeed 

 better with small farms than with large farms, with a few trout than 

 with many trout, and the reasons are obvious. 



In regard to the kind of food our opinion remains unchanged, that any 

 animal substance which can be finely enough divided is good for food 

 for the young, and that probably a variety is better than feeding on one 

 thing alone. 



Filters. — ^All the water which entered the hatching-house used to be 

 passed through a large filter. The plan now generally adopted is not 

 to filter the water at the entrance, but as it passes out of the supply- 

 trough into the hatching-troughs. This is accomplished by means of 

 one or more flannel screens laid under the spigot which supplies the 

 trough. The advantage of this arrangement is that it is necessary only 

 to filter the water used for hatching, and not to clean two or three inches 

 of water for the sake of using one quarter inch. Besides this the small 

 screens are more easily cleaned, none of the dirt is spOled in removing 

 them, and enough of them can be used to thoroughly clean the water. 



A little sediment is also not minded so much as formerly ; and there 



