582 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



longing to him, Saint-Front, in the canton Fay-le-Froidi, department 

 Haute-Loire, in France, has a surface of fully 30 hectares, a depth of up 

 to 10 meters, and an elevation of 1,200 meters above the sea. It is fed 

 partly by numerous springs in the bottom of the lake, partly by brooks 

 which ilow into it after first traversing the meadows which surround the 

 lake ; a larger brook. La Gague, carries the water from the lake to the 

 river Loire. The lake contains trout which are much esteemed, and 

 which are sold on the spot for 2 francs 50 centimes to 3 francs per half 

 kilogram = 1 Norwegian pound. 



Until 1854 they restricted themselves to liberating in the lake a few 

 hundred small trout caught in the brooks ; but this autumn they took 

 pains to procure 30,000 to 40,000 impregnated eggs, which were placed 

 in an apparatus constructed for the purpose in the lake itself, to be 

 hatched out. In subsequent years this was annually continued in an 

 increasing scale, just as persons by cleaiung out the tributary brooks 

 have attempted the improvement of natural culture. In the space 

 of the year 1857 by net fishing they took regularly from 25 to 30 kilo- 

 grams of fish of an average size of 300 grams every time. He can now, 

 without interfering with the abundance of the fish, sell at least 15,000 

 kilograms annually, and his manager, Mr. Millet, thinks that one might, 

 without injury, take 200 kilograms per hectare annually. The lake con- 

 tains also carp and other cyprinoids, together with an abundance of 

 minnows and frogs, which serve as food for the trout. 



The Marquis de Selve has constructed a fish-cultivating establish- 

 ment* at Godset Villiers, in the communeCerny, in the department of the 

 Seine and Oise, near Paris. It consists of a canal with manifold wind- 

 ings, which in a total extent of 12 kilometers (one Norwegian mile), tra- 

 verses a nearly horizontal field of 12 hectares, and ends in a larger 

 basin from 10 to 30 meters in diameter, and is 5 meters deep ; the canal 

 is 2 meters in breadth, and is fed by water taken from Cerny canal, 

 which from the basin flows out again into the river Essonne. The 

 whole inclination from the beginning of the canal to the outlet from the 

 basin is only 80 centimeters, but the water supply is sufficient to main- 

 tain a suitably strong current ; ^'arious rather strong springs increase 

 at many points the water supply, as they furnish the hatching apparatus 

 with the necessary water for the development of salmon and trout. At 

 the highest portion of the field are constructed smaller canals for the 

 rearing of the delicate young until they have reached such a size that they 

 can be liberated in the larger canals. There is abundance of water 

 which nourishes an endless multitude of small crustaceans, and the bot- 

 tom contains lime, which is of great advantage for the development of 

 the common large crawfish. 



In the spring of 1864 was begun a project of digging a couple of kilo- 

 meters of the large canal to experiment with trout and the common 



* Rapport par Ch. Wallut, 15 Mars, 1867, Bulletin de la Soci^t^ d'AccUmatation k 

 Paris. 



