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izatiou of this commission. As I have already shown, 

 431,000 are now being reared, and arrangements have 

 been made for bnilding rearing ponds and boxes so 

 that the outpnt will be 1,000,000 in the nearby futnre. 



The experiment was made dnring the spring of 

 changing trout fry and eggs from the water and food 

 of one hatchery to that of another, much as members 

 of the human family are moved from mountain to sea 

 air, or vice versa, as a tonic, and the result, whether 

 owing to the change alone or from other causes, has 

 been the strongest, most vigorous fry turned out in 

 years by the state, if the testimony of the hatchery 

 men and the people who have received the fry is com- 

 petent. Not a single complaint has been received that 

 the fry were sick or weak or in poor condition. 



Yearling trout have been reared the past year that 

 were nine inches long. I moved one lot of 3^earling 

 trout, receiving them from a hatchery messenger after 

 a journe}' of two hundred miles, and taking them 

 sevent3^-five miles further without the loss of a fish, 

 and there was scarcely one that was under the legal 

 length of six inches. By legal length I mean the 

 length exceeding which trout ma}^ be killed by statute 

 when caught. The planting of trout over six inches 

 in length will tend to render the efforts of the commis- 

 sion void in stocking streams to make them self-sustain- 

 ing, as every one of such fish planted in the spring 

 may be legally caught and killed before they have an 

 opportunity to spawn. It is for that and other reasons 

 allied to it that the commissioners sought to obtain the 

 power possessed by the New Hampshire Commission, 

 and perhaps other state fish commissions, to enable 

 them to close planted streams until the fish become 

 established, or until they have had the opportunity to 

 spawn at least once before they can be legally killed. 

 As the law now stands it presents the curious anomaly 

 of practically nullifying the efforts of the commission 



