XVII.-MEMORANDUM ON FISH CULTURE IN JAPAN, WITH A 

 NOTICE OF EXPERIMENTS IN BREEDING THE CALIFORNIA 

 TROUT. 



By Sekizawa Akekio. 



The Imperial Japanese Government has taken the steps towards car- 

 rying on a complete system of fish culture by founding on its property, 

 in different places, hatching establishments, from which many thousand 

 young fish are now annually supplied to some of the rivers which had 

 beeu exhausted of fish. The first stations established were those at 

 Yuki, Kanagawa Ken, and at Shirako, Saitamo Ken, in 1877. Each of 

 these establishments has a capacity for raising upwards of 30,000 fish. 



A great difficulty is met with in this country in getting a good supply 

 of cold water; spring water can rarely be found in abundance, and 

 there is none which can be used; and its temperature varies a good deal 

 with that of the air, and it does not rise to the temperature of 57° F. 

 This is a great drawback. 



The hatching establishments have recently been increased to the num- 

 ber of five, which are situated as follows : One in Shiga Ken, another 

 iu Shidzuoka Ken, two in Nagano Ken, and the other in Ishikawa Ken. 

 Four temporary camps are also built at convenient places on the rivers 

 for the purpose of supplying fish to those rivers. At these camps 

 salmon eggs are hatched and the young fry kept until they are fit to be 

 turned into the rivers. This work begins towards the end of December, 

 and by the middle of the following April the fry may be set free iu the 

 rivers. 



The largest establishment in Japan at the present time is that in 

 Shiga Ken. This has an abundant supply of water, with the tempera- 

 ture of 54° F. in summer. It has a sufficient capacity to raise any 

 number of fish. For this establishment lake-trout eggs were brought 

 from Lake Biwa, which is near the hatching station, and the results 

 have been highly satisfactory. There are now at this place 40,000 

 healthy fish, one year and a half old and in splendid condition ; also 

 i?o0,000 young fry in a thriving condition. 



It is worthy of remark that the water from the springs and rivers of 

 Japan is nearly always very soft, containing a very little saline matter, 

 of which a large proportion is silica and very little lime. 



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