REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. *o 



States Commission was simply to carry on the inquiry just referred to, 

 and a small appropriation was sufficient to meet the cost, especially as 

 Congress, by its act, directed that all the executive departments of the 

 government should render such aid to the Commission, as might be in 

 their power. 



In the second year, however, of the Commission an additional fea- 

 ture was ingrafted, namely, that of the i^ropagation and actual multi- 

 plication of the food-fishes. 



At the meeting of February 7, 1872, of the American Fish-Culturists 

 Association, a committee was appointed to memorialize Congress as to 

 the importance and necessity of actual aid in restoring fish to the de- 

 pleted waters of the United States, or in stocking them with new and 

 useful food-fishes. 



This committee, of which Mr. George Shepard Page was chairman, 

 appeared before the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Eep- 

 resentatives and presented their case. A favorable conclusion was 

 reached, and the sundry civil bill as reported contained an appropria- 

 tion of §10,000 for the purpose. This, however, was rejected by the 

 House ; but an item of $15,000, inserted by the Senate, became a law, 

 thus establishing a new feature in the work of the Commission. Since 

 then increasing appropriations have been made year by year. 



The country fully sustained the action of Congress in giving the 

 experiment a fair trial, being well satisfied that if successful the bene- 

 fits would be vastly more than proportionate to the expenditures. The 

 l)ublic sympathy with the subject has also been shown by the fact that 

 since the establishment of the United States Fish Commission a large 

 proportion of the States have organized state commissions for the pur- 

 pose of looking after the interests of their waters and of cooperating 

 with the United States Commission toward the accomplishment of a 

 common end. 



The active field-work of the United States Fish Commission, there- 

 fore, formerly confined to the summer, now embraces almost the entire 

 year — the hatching of shad covering a period from March until Au- 

 gust ; that of the California salmon from June until November ; of the 

 Penobscot salmon from June until the ensuing March or April ; of the 

 Landlocked salmon from September until March ; and of the whitefish 

 from October until March. 



An enormous and constantly increasing correspondence is necessarily 

 maintained throughout the year, the applications for fish, inquiries as 

 to proper methods of stocking certain waters, the arrangements neces- 

 sary for the raoveme'iit of the fish and their introduction into suitable 

 localities, and attention to other business details, making a very oner- 

 ous and exhaustive aggregate of office-work. 



Each department of the field-work has a special expert in charge of it, 

 to whose industry, energy, and ability, the Commission owes whatever 

 success it has met with in prosecuting its labors. Thus, for the sea- 



