PROPAGATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD FISHES, 1921. 3 
During the fiscal year ended June 30, 1921, 62 per cent of the 
appropriation provided by Congress for the propagation and dis- 
tribution of food fishes was expended in the maintenance and develop- 
ment of the commercial fisheries.2 The remaining portion of the 
fund was devoted to the equally important, though less extensive, 
work of producing and disseminating in the interior waters of the 
country various species of trout and the so-called warm-water fishes, 
including the black basses, crappies, and sunfish. The widely ex- 
tended and rapidly increasing use of the automobile has opened 
to tourists and sportsmen numerous trout and bass waters which 
were formerly inaccessible, with the result that interior streams and 
lakes in all parts of the country have been heavily overfished. Of 
all fishermen concerned automobilists as a class are perhaps the 
most law-abiding, but their rapidly increasing numbers and their 
habit of camping near a promising body of water and fishing it for 
an extended period—sometimes for several days—has constituted 
a drain which it will not be easy to make good. A most serious aspect 
of the situation is that it threatens the resources of waters which 
have never heretofore required any appreciable effort on the part 
of either Federal or State agencies to maintain. The greatest danger 
in this respect les in the Western mountain States, in New England, 
and in other parts of the country which abound in natural scenic 
beauty. 
The situation is a grave one, and if not given proper and imme- 
diate attention by the States concerned and by the Federal Govern- 
ment there is imminent danger of the total depletion of fish life in 
many valuable waters which have heretofore yielded an abundant 
supply. The advantages of keeping the interior waters of the coun- 
try well stocked with the game and food fishes adapted to them are 
many and obvious. By such means a cheap and very desirable food 
supply is afforded to a certain class of people who would otherwise 
be unable to enjoy it. Vast numbers of people are inspired by the 
lure of good fishing to seek the great out-of-doors, with very bene- 
ficial results to their health, aside from the recreation afforded. 
Certain of the State authorities who are not able to cope with the 
difficulty have applied to the Bureau of Fisheries for aid, but in most 
instances it could not be given, the bureau’s resources having been 
already greatly overtaxed in the effort to maintain the scope of its 
work along previously established lines. 
The bureau’s efforts in fish culture are directed chiefly toward the 
maintenance of the existing fisheries of the country and toward the 
development of new and profitable sources of fish supply by extend- 
ing its operations over a wider territory in fields contiguous to the 
present stations. Five important functions are involved in this work, 
namely, the collections of eggs from various species of fish of 
economic value, the incubation of the eggs in properly equipped 
hatcheries, the rearing and feeding of the young of certain species, 
the rescue of stranded fishes from overflow waters in the Mississippi 
Valley, and the distribution of fish and fish eggs in suitable waters. 
2The expenditures involved in distributing the output of the hatcheries represents 
approximately 17 per cent of the total appropriation, and 30 per cent of this amount 
represents the expenditures in connection with the commercial species. 
