EXPOETATION OF FISHES AND HATCHING APPARATUS. 1021 



in her rivers from five to teu millions of shad and salmon i)er annum, 

 and has, daring the last eleven years, spent $40,000 for such eflorts. 

 Michigan has placed one million and a half of the finest Corcgonus in 

 more than two hundred of her lakes, and millions of shad in her rivers. 

 Not contented with this, a new hatching-house has been erected, in 

 which, at the date of our report, there were eight million Coregonv.s eggs. 



A great many interesting facts might be gleaned from the reports of 

 the other States, but time forbids to enter into details. I will only men- 

 lion that everywhere, at an annual expense of a few thousand dollars, 

 the fish commissioners, who invariably consider their oifice an honorary 

 one, have obtained great results. The American pisciculturists, above 

 everything, lay great weight on the necessity of fish-ways, and of a 

 weekly season of 24 to 36 hours when fishing is absolutely prohibited. 



This, gentlemen, also applies to Germany, and I shall now make a 

 few remarks on our German piscicultural efforts. 



I am far from ignoring tbe progress which we, too, have made dur- 

 ing the last five years: we have in Prussia a good fishing-law, and 

 soon expect to get the necessary regulations, seasons and. places of 

 prohibition, and salmon-ladders; we have placed several millions of 

 young salmon in nearly all the German rivers, the results being already 

 visible; that the sunshine of public favor is more and more directed to 

 our efibrts ; that at the present moment we possess more than one hun- 

 dred and fifty piscicultural establishments, many of which have dis- 

 played a very liberal spirit by gratuitously hatching our salmon eggs: 

 all these things, gentlemen, I consider as encouraging signs of progress. 

 This, however, is not the subject on which I desire to speak to you this 

 day; but I wish to ask the question, what is to be done in the future? 



Our object is clear, even if we don't think of " depecoration^^; it is to 

 increase the food for the people hy producing large quantities of fish, with 

 the smallest possible expense. 



To attain to this object, we must first direct our efforts to the migra- 

 tory fish ; secondly, we must make endeavors that our lakes, both large 

 and small, from the proud Lake of Constance to the smallest pond in 

 Lithuania, may produce as many and as good fish as their natural char- 

 acter and modern cultivation permit. 



This is a grand object. We may never reach it entirely, but it is 

 nevertheless our duty to aim at it with all our energy. Here is a wide 

 field of action for the German Fishery Association. 



I might give you an account of the deplorable condition of our rivers 

 from the Memel to the Ehine ; how, nearly everywhere, the salmon are 

 prevented from ascending them ; how there is scarcely a single spawn- 

 ing-brook without arrangements for catching the young fish ; how num- 

 berless hogs are fed with young fish ; but I will forbear. Gentlemen, 

 our field is wide if we everywhere desire to remedy the existing state of 

 affairs. 



Among the migratory fish, to which, as I said before, we must first 



