91 



S3'Stem, and the result was tliat a year ago last fall a 

 Frenchman was fishing at Point Mouille, on Lake 

 Erie, and he "cot seventy-liv de barl of carb" and did n't 

 know what it was. To show the importance of that 

 in our locality, I had our statistical agent take two days 

 and go through our markets and make inquiry of the 

 fish dealers as to what value the carp was, what mag- 

 nitude the sales were, and the sales last 3'ear in the 

 Detroit market were seventy tons, which is quite a 

 considerable amount for a fish which introduced itself. 

 Lake system, and have put it into very few rivers. 

 But nature takes care of that thing. The fishermen 

 are robbing our lakes of all the good fish, irrespective 

 of size, and the question is, what is going to become 

 of our waters, and in a measure the carp is solving the 

 question for us. We have a great many applications 

 for fish, as all commissions have. A man wants fish, 

 and will take carp if he cannot get an^^thing else, and 

 some take it out of preference. He builds himself 

 what he calls a pond, and the average farmer thinks 

 he has exerted himself far enough if he throws up a 

 bank of soil that will hold water in the dry season. 

 Fortunately, the freshets of spring and summer time 

 come along, and they wash out his pond as a matter of 

 course. The result is that the connecting stream is 

 stocked with carp, that stream enters into the Lake 



But above and beyond all that, he must occupy 

 another position, and in that respect I agree with the 

 writer of the paper. I was talking the matter over with 

 Dr. Bean yesterda3^ It is going to be the food, or 

 should be the food, of our better varieties of fish, as 

 suggested here. Thej^ are prolific and the young are 

 an edible fish, and 3'ou simpl}^ convert the carp into a 

 better fish, so that you have the carp as a valuable 

 factor there. 



There is one more remark I want to make in 

 connection with this paper. You will observe that he 



