OPERATIONS ON THE M'OLOUD RIVER IN 1876. 943 



E— THE SHIPMENT OF EGGS AND HATCHING THE SURPLUS. 



So short is the time at the McCloud station between taking the eggs 

 and shipping them, that they were hardly in the hatching-troughs be- 

 fore we were preparing to pack and send tliem off. As is well known 

 to those who have kept track of the labor of the United States Fish 

 Commission on the McCloud River, the only available moss for packing 

 the salmon-eggs is found in the spring-brooks which head in Mount 

 Shasta. This moss is not by any means abundant, and the extensive 

 draught which we have made on the supply for the last five years has so 

 reduced it that this year we had to go seven miles farther than usual 

 in order to get enough for our purposes. It has always been a good 

 deal of an undertaking to collect the moss, and from the cause just 

 mentioned was made still more so this year. I obtained a large quan- 

 tity, however, but still not quite enough to pack the eggs with. The 

 deficiency was supplied by the river moss, as we call it there, which is 

 found on the rocks on the river-banks in shady places, anywhere very 

 near the water. In ordinarily dry seasons this is not available, as it is 

 dried up and worthless ; but this year, fortunately, there was so much 

 rain during the summer that we were able to find a very considerable 

 quantity of it which was suitable for packing. 



Hitherto the salmon-eggs have always been sent to their eastern des- 

 tination by express. The suggestion has often presented itself, how- 

 ever, that they might possibly be shii)ped at a much less expense by 

 means of a car provided with a sufficient complement of ice, and taken 

 along with the overland express trains. Notwithstanding the many 

 difficulties that stood in the way of carrying out this suggestion, I nev- 

 ertheless decided to attempt the undertaking, and accordingly arranged 

 with the Central Pacific Railroad Company to have a large fruit-car at 

 Redding, our nearest railway station, on the 21st of September, loaded 

 with four tons of ice. On the same day that the car arrived at Redding 

 we commenced packing the eggs at the McCloud Fishery. Strange as 

 it now seems, it was once considered a good day's work to pack and ship 

 80,000 eggs in a day, as Mr. Atkins, of the Penobscot Salmon Breeding 

 Station, can testify; but my men, by long experience in their work, had 

 acquired such dexterity and method, that on the first morning we packed 

 four hundred thousand eggs in an hour and a half One of the dangers 

 of not making the refrigerator car a success was the supposed impracti- 

 cability of packing a full load for a car in a sufiiciently short space of 

 time. For instance, at the rate of 80,000 a day, it would take fifty days 

 to pack 4,000,000, in the course of which all of them would not only be 

 hatched, but would be ready to feed. The extraordinary dispatch with 

 which our first lot of eggs was packed removed all doubts concerning 

 our ability to get a full car-load packed within the required time. 



During the rest of the week, however, we continued packing the eggs 

 as they were required, sending three or four wagon-loads each day to 

 the car at Redding, where Mr. Green was detailed to superintend the 



