American Fisheries Soeiety. 103 



year 190,000,000 of pike eggs from 3,000 and odd fish and just 

 think of it, the number of pike eggs taken from those fish, when 

 you come to figure up the quantity in all the lakes, it would 

 figure up into the hundreds of billions. 



Mr. Bower: We can get a larger percentage of fertilization 

 but we know there is no spawning ground of any kind of fish 

 that is not also the feeding ground of some other fish. Now, 

 why let those go to waste in that way? 



Mr. Nevin: I agree with you there. 



Mr. Bower: If fish are spawned artificially why not go a 

 step further and secure better results by protecting the fertilized 

 ova until hatched? That is the point. 



Prof. Birge: There are certain limits to the size of your 

 hatching houses. The cost of hatching and caring for your fish 

 until they are ready to plant is considerable. By the expenditure 

 of a few hundred dollars you can put back an enormous number 

 of impregnated eggs which need not be taken care of. 



Mr. Bower: ( )n that point, I will say there has never been a 

 season, certainly not to my knowledge, when all the hatcheries 

 of the great lakes have been filled. They never have been able 

 to fill them all in one season yet. 



Mr. Nevin:' In relation to Lake Ontario, I know for tlie last 

 twenty years there have been very few fish taken from the fact 

 they are not there. At the same time we know millions of eggs 

 are laid there every year, the fish lay their eggs there but they 

 don't seem to increase. There has been no fishing there in 

 twenty years. 



Mr. Dickerson: They have fished them out in the same 

 way they are fishing out our lakes now. I say a close season is 

 of no benefit. 



Mr. Davis: Is it not a fact that in Lake Ontario, as well as 

 in other lakes that the fish have been caught so small; that the 

 majority of fish have been caught out before they have arrived 

 at the age of reproduction? 



Mr. Nevin: That is the trouble around all the lakes. 



Mr. Tondin then read extracts from letters he had received 

 from fishermen and gave data which he had obtained from mix- 

 ing freely with the fishermen, which he thought was obtainable 

 in no other way. He said if we could only induce the fishermen 



