790 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



rains. A boom twice as strong as ours would, if placed at right 

 angles with the current, be broken like a pipe-stem by this drift when 

 the river is high and rapid ; but to obviate this our boom is kept, by 

 spars extending from the shore, at an angle of not over 20<^ with the 

 current, in consequence of which, whatever drift strikes it simply slides 

 by outside of the boats and goes ou down the river without doing any 

 harm. 



The water-supply for the hatching-house having been made secure by 

 these expedients, it only remained to finish the dwelling-house and sta- 

 ble connected with the fishery, and the season's work was done, with 

 the exception of placing the young salmon in the river. 



When I left Oregon, the latter part of November, about half of the 

 fish had been deposited, and the balance, in charge of Mr. Waldo F. Hub- 

 bard, were likely to be ready some time in December. The total num- 

 ber of young salmon, including both those placed in the river and those 

 still remaining in the hatching-house, was nearly a million. 



Considering the late day at which the undertaking was commenced, 

 and the great and numberless difficulties which attended it from the 

 beginning, it seems to be doing as well as could be expected to even 

 l)lace the establishment the first year in successful working order; and 

 to actually succeed in hatching and turning out nearly a million salmon 

 is, I confess, more than I thought it possible to do this year. Indeed, 

 it was nearly all that it was possible to do. There were over a thousand 

 drift-nets in the Columbia, each 1,200 feet long, running all summer; 

 there were drift-nets and two traps on the Clackamas, and in Septem- 

 ber a trap reaching nearly across the mouth of the same river, and how 

 could we expect to get many parent salmon to take eggs from at the 

 terminus of a gauntlet like that ? The fact was that nearly every sal- 

 mon that entered the mouth of the Columbia was trapped, netted, 

 seined, speared, or otherwise destroyed before it reached our fishery. 



If every salmon which reached the hatching-station after the river 

 was low enough to permit fishing had been caught and spawned, the yield 

 of eggs would not have been very great. This is owing not to the natural 

 scarcity of salmon in the Clackamas, but to the excessive fishing in the 

 waters below, especially at the canneries ou the Columbia. This leads 

 me to say that the drift-net and trap-fishing at the canneries of the Co- 

 lumbia are at present pushed to such an extreme degree that unless 

 some restriction is imposed, even artificial hatching cannot be carried 

 on at any point on the Columbia or its tributaries to a sufficient extent 

 to replace the vast number of fish destroyed. 



The Clackamas Eiver is undoubtedly the best location there is- for 

 hatching the Columbia Kiver salmon in large quantities, and we have 

 just seen how meager the results must be, even there, without some 

 restriction on the fishing below. Without such restriction the Colum- 

 bia River salmon is doomed, and his days will soon be numbered. But 

 "With suitable protection, and with the assistance of the Clackamas 



,i 



