FISH CULTURE. 267 



cent, hatched out. I then made up my mind that the eggs would have 

 to 1)6 coiiflued so that they woukl not get away and .still could have 

 sufficient change of water: so I took old boxes and, knoci^ing oat tlic 

 ends, substituted wire-cloth and i)ut the boxes in the current. This ar- 

 rangement answered better, but the eggs were cariied agaiust the side 

 opposite the current and lodged there, and many died of suhociJtiou. I 

 thought if I could let in the current from the bottom it might keep the 

 eggs from packing against the sides, so I made some boxes v.'ith wire 

 bottoms. This proved a gain, but was not yet the thing, because the 

 eggs had a tendency to heap themselves into the four corners of the box. 

 I suppose I made twenty different kinds of boxes, the one answering 

 best being a box with wire-cloth bottom and sides partly board and 

 partly wire. But the percentage of eggs hatched was not yet what it 

 ought to be. I also laid some eggs in various positions on gravel in the 

 bed of the river; of these about one egg in two hundred hatched out. 

 This was simply done by way of experiment, as I had often heard (and 

 hear yet) of eggs being laid into river- water and there batching. Well, 

 I was satisfied that some shape or form of box, placed in the river-cur- 

 rent, was to be the desired method. At last, one day I happened to be 

 standing in the water holding a box full of eggs. This box was one of 

 those which had board sides and ends and wire-cloth bottom. As I was 

 holding the box carelessly in my hands and thinking over the problem, 

 one end of the box happened to turn u])ward against the current. Imme- 

 diately the eggs, instead of lying still and in heaps, commenced to boil up- 

 ward with a gentle and steadily-continued motion. One look was enough. 

 I had found the secret. Theonly thing necessary was to keep theendof the 

 box toward the current turned up, so that the current would strike ob- 

 liquely agaiust the wire bottom ; and this I accomplished by means of 

 fioats nailed to the sides of the box at the desired angle. I made two 

 formal experiments with this box, using in each ten thousand carefully 

 taken eggs. In the hrst experiment all but seven eggs hatched ; in the 

 next all but ten eggs hatched. It may be well to say just here that I at 

 once took out a patent on the box, and that it cannot be- used except with 

 my permission. But I have been getting ahead of my story. 



On July 3 I found that the river boxes were doing well and those in 

 the creek were not ; so I abandoned the latter. On July 4 I could 

 plainly see a living formation in the eggs. July 3, forty-five hours after 

 impregnation, I plainly saw the young shad in the egg. As I was 

 watching that night b}' the water-side, a fellow came down and was 

 wading off to my boxes. I ran out and hailed him. He attempted to run 

 off, but I ordered him to come up, which he did when the argument was 

 enforced with a revolver. lie said that he saw something in the river 

 as he was passing, and thought he would wade out and see what it was, 

 I patiently explained the whole thing to him, and he listened just as if 

 he had never heard of it before. 



The next day, July G, at 2 p. m., the first shad hatched out, in fifty- 

 eight hours, with the water at To^. On July 7, 18G7, 1 put into the river 

 ten thousand young fish, being the first artificially hatched shad ever 

 put into the river. After I had found the slant in the boxes, hatching 

 was very easy work. But this was not the end of the business, for 1 

 did not yet know what to do with the young fish. In solving the prob- 

 lem, the first thing to be discovered was where the young fish went to, 

 after being hatched. I knew that the young trout sought the shallow 

 places near the shore, where the larger fish could not get at them. So 

 at first I put the young shad into shallow water near the margin of the 



