580 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



want of a regular water supply or other circumstances, cannot be used for 

 salmon or sea-trout. There is no difficulty in planting them. The young 

 eels will be found in all rivulets which proceed from waters wherein the 

 eel lives, regularly every spring, if one takes the trouble to look for 

 them in May and June. They migrate, as remarked, not singly, but in 

 dense masses of many thousands, and can be collected with ease. If it 

 is necessary to bring them from a very great distance, the transportation 

 is not difficult. The eel's tenacity to life is known, and they are able to 

 live many days in water-plants if they are now and then moistened and 

 kept in a cold i)lace. 



IV. 



ACQUIRED EXPERIENCE. 



In order that one may form an idea by any means clear concerning 

 what profit he may expect from systematic fish-culture prosecuted 

 to a different extent in different localities, it is necessary to know the 

 results which have been reached from such culture in other places. I 

 shall, therefore, communicate below a few instructive illustrations sought 

 among a multitude of experiences in different countries and authentic 

 sources. 



In the State of Kew York, in the vicinity of Caledonia, Messrs. Seth 

 Green, A. S. Collins, and S. M. Spencer, in 1865 to 1866, constructed a 

 fish-farm nearly three-quarters of a mile (1,200 meters) from the source of 

 the Caledonia Springs, a brook which originates from springs in the bot- 

 tom of its bed, and which at the farm conveys a bulk of water of nearly 

 80 barrels, or about 10,500 liters,* per second, or about 9,000,000 hecto- 

 liters in twenty-four hours ; a respectable body of water, which is com- 

 pletely at the disposition of fish-culture. The farm contains an area of 

 about 20 hectares, which, in a length of about 800 meters, is traversed 

 by a brook. Since the ground is quite level, there is no overflow 

 into the brook, whose water, therefore, is perfectly clear; it contains a 

 small portion of sulphur and chalk, but these must be well adapted to 

 the fish, since the brook has been renowned for its trout, which are now 

 numerous in it. The object of the construction of the farm was to rear 

 trout for sale as food, but circumstances have caused the operations to 

 involve chieflj^ the bringing in of impregnated eggs, newly-hatched young, 

 and one to two years' old fish for sale for stocking other lakes, brooks, 

 and ponds. Many millions of eggs are hatched out annually .t 



The selling x^rices are: For a single thousand impregnated eggs, $10; 

 many thousands and upwards, $5 to $S per thousand ; for newly-hatched 

 young, $30 per thousand ; yearlings, $12 per hundred ; fishes two years 

 old, $25 per hundred, or a little over the price of dead fish for food, l^o 

 more old fish are kejit and reared than are necessary to procure the de- 



* One liter ^:= 1.0362 quarts; one hectoliter = 103.52 quarts. 



t Seth Green: Trout Culture, 1870. Leon Soubeiran: Pisciculture dans I'Amerique 

 du Nord, 1871. Raveret Wattell Progrfes de Pisciculture aux i^tats-Unia, 1873. 



