800 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



we should have taken a very scanty supply of eggs. As it was, we be- 

 gan spawning the salmon on the 28th of August, on which day we ob- 

 tained 28,000 eggs, and continued taking eggs till the 19th of September, 

 when we took the last of the regular season's supply. We continued 

 fishing, however, to procure a supply of spawners for the eggs which 

 were to go to Australia and Kew Zealand, it being necessary to take 

 these just twenty days before the Australian steamer sails from San 

 Francisco, so that they will, at starting, be neither so young that they 

 cannot be packed without injury, nor so far advanced that they will 

 hatch out on the journey. These eggs were all taken on the 18th and 

 19th of September. 



The experiment, which was tried for the first time last year, of ship- 

 ping the salmon across the continent in a refrigerator-car, or rather a 

 common box-car filled witk ice, proved a very marked success ; hardly 

 more than two per cent, of the eggs being killed by the journey. I de- 

 cided, therefore, to use the same method of transportation again this 

 season, and on the 2Cth of September Mr. Pratt went to Sacramento 

 for the car and brought it to Eedding, where it was loaded during the 

 29th and 30th of September and 1st of October, and from which point 

 it was dispatched on the 2d day of October with the i)asseuger-train 

 for Sacramento. On the same afternoon it left Sacramento with the 

 overland passenger-train, and reached Chicago on the 7th of October, 

 where the crates containing the eggs were received and forwarded by 

 the United States Express Company to their various points of destina- 

 tions. I will give a short quotation below from Mr. Pratt's letter in 

 regard to loading the car : 



" United States Fishery, October 4, 1877. 



" My Dear Mr. Stone : I went down to Sacramento on the 26th, 

 but left here on the 25th, as it was necessary for me to stop at Stillwater 

 and see about the teams that were to haul the eggs to Kedding, as we 

 had not received an answer from one of the parties (Mr. Smithson). I 

 mailed the letters to the consignees the 2Gth from Eedding. On arriv- 

 ing at Sacramento I found the car already there, but there was no use 

 in taking it up to Redding until the next day. 



" On the morning of the 28th I had the car sent around to the ice- 

 house, and, having secured permission irom the railroad authorities, 

 had the ice all packed in one end of the car, 6J tons, and used thirteen 

 barrels of sawdust to pack around it. On reaching Eedding you could 

 not see that the ice had melted a particle. I found three loads of salmon 

 eggs standing on the platform at the freight depot, and after packing 

 with ice the one crate going by express to Salt Lake City, I went to 

 work and loaded the remaining crates into the car and iced them all. 

 Had engaged a man to help me, and to look after the car while it re- 

 mained at Eedding. 



"Mr. O'Brien had brought down one load and he assisted us in pack- 



