REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 



41 



wide a scale as available funds wUl permit. In spite of the healthy 

 gi'owth and expansion of the Bureau's activities, facilities are heavily 

 taxed in attempts to supply the constantly increasing demands from 

 all sections of the country for food and game fishes for public and 

 private waters. Large as are the annual distributions, the output of 

 none of the species exceeds the actual need, and in most instances 

 falls short of requirements. Particularly is this true of such fishes 

 as the black basses, crappies, sunfishes, and catfishes, the demand 

 for which, in the stocking of private and semiprivate waters adapted 

 to pond culture, makes imperative the expansion of this branch of 

 the work to its utmost possibilities. The applications received dur- 

 ing the year numbered 9,446, and a very large percentage of them 

 were for fish for stocking artificial or private ponds. 



COOPERATION WITH STATE AND FOREIGN FISHERY AUTHORITIES. 



In continuation of its cooperative relations with the States in fish- 

 cultural work, tlie Bureau has made large allotments of eggs and 

 limited numbers of fry, fingerlmgs, and yearlings to State hatcheries. 

 As shown in the following table, such allotments aggregated over 

 209,000,000 and went to 24 States: 



Allotments of Fish Eggs to State Fish Commissions, Fiscal Year 1912.' 



' There were also allotted to Connecticut 600,000 shad fry: to Massachusetts, 10,000 chinook salmon 

 fingerlings, to Nebraska, 3,000 brook trout fingerlings and 3,000 rainbow trout fingerlings; to New Jersey, 

 2,500,000 pike perch fry; and to Vermont, 300 brook trout fingerlings. 



