10* REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



While every efifbrt has been aud will continue to be made to meet all 

 reasonable calls for eggs and tish, the limitations in this respect may be 

 easily appreciated, these relating more particularly to thQ appropriation, 

 the possibility of obtaining a sufficiency of spawn, and the time required 

 for training a select body of men for the special service required by the 

 Commission. 



Congress, from the beginning, has shown an appreciation of the 

 importance of the object of the Fish Commission, and has furnished all 

 the assistance for which application has been made. The appropriations 

 have been increased from year to year as a judicious expenditure 

 became possible. 



The ability to secure a supply of eggs of the food fishes is a matter 

 depending kirgely upon circumstances ; sometimes, as in the case of 

 shad or salmon, the number obtainable will be sufficient to occupy all 

 the attention that can be devoted to them; at others, the run of spawn- 

 ing fish is greatly diminished by local conditions, such as the temper- 

 ature, the height or the turbidity of the water, artificial obstruction, 

 etc., and much disappointment ensues. Gradually, however, with the 

 increasing experience of the assistants of the Commission, a better 

 knowledge of the times and seasons of the fish, improved apparatus, 

 and the extension of the number of stations, the difficulty has been 

 overcome; and it is now quite possible to calculate with considerable 

 precision the result to be expected for any given year from a certain 

 appropriation. 



At present the applications are increasing in a much greater ratio than 

 the amount of the appropriations and the actual facilities for securing 

 the eggs. The Commission endeavors to make the distribution as equit- 

 able as possible, so that no one portion of the country shall appear to be 

 favored at the expense of another, but a certain amount of disappoint- 

 ment is sometimes expressed at the failure to introduce the fish at 

 some particular point designated, when the deposit has actually been 

 made in the same waters nearer their source. It is not generally under- 

 stood that the greater amount of runway between the place of deposit 

 and the Gulf of Mexico or the ocean the better it is for the fish, as in 

 the upper portion of the stream the water is generally cooler and more 

 free from destructive fishes that would act unfavorably upon the fiy 

 after introduction. 



In the Mississippi Valley the inhabitants on the Lower Ohio are 

 benefited by the introduction of fish into the headwaters of its tribu- 

 taries, aud those in the Lower Mississii)pi receive the advantage of all 

 the distribution to points on any stream that discharges its contents 

 into the ''Father of Waters." 



The citizens of Massachusetts and Connecticut are better served by 

 the planting of salmon or shad in waters of the Connecticut Eiver in 

 the States of Vermont or New Hampshire than they would be if these 

 were placed within their own States. 



