EXPERIMENTS IN PROPAGATING MAIFISCHE. 859 



in this respect even under the most unfavorable local circumstances, 

 and what a great and i)romising future there is in store for pisciculture 

 in this special branch, if once it has been rightly understood and the 

 proper interest taken in it. It is an unfortunate circumstance that we 

 neither possess the means to make researches in this held more general, 

 and to make full use of the knowledge gained thereby, nor that we can 

 offer to those men who under the greatest difficulties and at their own 

 expense make these researches and gaiu this knowledge any public posi- 

 tion which would be remunerative, but that we must invariably refer them 

 to their i)rivate enterprise ; and therefore we always meet them as fish- 

 ermen, who must make their living by the fisheries but who have very 

 little time left for any questions of general interest. They consequently 

 remain stationary on that slightly varying step of knowledge where 

 accident has placed them. In my opinion there is no field of human 

 knowledge for which the state should provide educational institutions 

 as much as that of pisciculture. I shall have occasion to refer to this 

 question again, and I hope sincerely that my remarks may contribute 

 their share in spreading more knowledge as to the ways of increasing 

 articles of human food, so that nature's vast treasures are not, as has 

 been unfortunately the case, wasted from sheer lack of knowledge how 

 to use them. 



After having been hospitably entertained by Mr. Haack and his esti- 

 mable lady, I returned to Basle, accompanied to that city by Mr. Haack, 

 where I took leave of him, my heart full of bright hopes regarding pis- 

 ciculture and its future. Arriving in Heidelberg at 5 a. m. on the 22d of 

 May, I took a short rest, and, as Mr. Midler had sent me word that there 

 were as yet no spawning "maiflsche" to bo seen, I went to Wiirzburg, in 

 order to gain further information from Mr. Seifried, one of our oldest 

 pisciculturists, who had formerly lived in Mayence, and who was well 

 acquainted with the river Main and its fisheries. Mr. Seifried showed 

 me his trout-raising establishment in Zell, and told me that occasionally 

 a few " maifische" had been caught in the Main in former times, but that 

 for many years none had been seen there. He thought this was caused 

 by the great quantity of refuse from various factories which get into the 

 Main, but in my opinion other causes have brought about this change. 



I here learned to know a fish-dealer and trout-raiser, Mr. Carl Helm- 

 stiidter, who had worked for six years in American piscicultural estab- 

 lishments, among the rest in the one owned by Mr. Seth Green, and 

 who gave me a great deal of interesting information. Wherever I went 

 I gathered information corroborative of my supposition that the Neckar 

 from Mannheim till below Heilbronn would be the only location where 

 sooner or later we would reach our object. Very well satisfied with 

 my excursion, I returned to Heidelberg, and on Wednesday the 23d of 

 May I again went to Seckeuheim to see Mr. Miiller, and found some 

 well impregnated eggs taken that morning. Mr. Miiller had the process 

 performed by a fisherman, and had afterward himself squeezed | of the 



