564 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



more tliaii five times as much as the last ; and even this will yield a good 

 profit, as will be shown later. As is well known, the export of ice has 

 in the last ten years steadily increased in extent and economical impor- 

 tance in this conutrj'. In many places along the coast where, naturally, 

 fitting opportunity has offered, ponds are constructed with considerable 

 expense for the production of ice alone for export. Nothing is more 

 natural than to use these ponds for fish culture along with ice produc- 

 tion, to which they are all, to a greater or less degree, adapted, accord- 

 ing as the supply of running watej:- and its quality may be. The ex- 

 penses which fish culture wjll occasion are nothing in comparison with 

 the cost of procuring ponds by means of damming brook-courses; but 

 the yield from fish culture, carried on with care, may be of very great 

 importance, especially if circumstances allow one to select salmon as the 

 object of culture. It will, at all events, give a very good return for 

 the outlay which the apparatus for fish culture and the labor upon it 

 demand. 



In the same way as one has found it to answer a good purpose to pro- 

 cure ice-ponds at considerable expense, will one in many places where 

 the opportunity offers be able, with profit, by damming, to construct 

 larger and smaller fish-ponds at such a distance from the sea that the 

 production of ice will have no other importance than as a means of pres- 

 ervation for the harvested fish. Such an opportunity is offered in many 

 places in our mountain districts, where the ground which must be sac- 

 rificed to transform it to a lake bottom instead of solid land cannot be 

 considered to have any value in comparison with that which it will ac- 

 quire by being transformed into a field for fish culture. One has it thus 

 in his power, to an extent which perhaps must be called very consider- 

 able, to enlarge the field for this culture, already yery great in j)ropor- 

 tion to other countries, which, as shall be shown later, has a more 

 varied economical importance than agriculture on good ground of cor- 

 responding extent. 



I shall next briefly mention — 



III. 



/ 



THE FISHES WHICH SHOULD BE THE OBJECTS OF CULTURE; ALSO 

 THE KINDS OF FISHES AND OTHER AQUATIC ANIMALS WHICH SHOULD 

 BE REARED AS FOOD FOB THESE. 



Since I, as before remarked, have our lakes and rivers specially in 

 mind, I shall first treat of the species which live exclusively in fresh 

 water, and then of those which live both in fresh and salt water. 



Following the prevailing taste among us, as also to a great extent in 

 other countries, the genera and species of fresh-water fishes should 

 probably be taken into consideration in the following order : Trout, red 

 char, gwiniad, grayling, perch, perch-pike, pike, and crawfish, besides 

 those improperly included with the fishes in familiar language. To 



