6 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 



commercial fishes are for the most part planted by the Bureau's 

 employees directly in public waters. 



Conditions affecting important branches of the work in certain 

 states are such as to occasion solicitude for the welfare of the fisheries 

 because of the failure of the states to appreciate the necessity of 

 insuring the survival of a certain proportion of the run of fish until 

 the eggs are deposited naturally or taken by the fish-culturist. The 

 intelligent adaptation of artificial propagation to particular fisheries 

 will insure the perpetuation of the species and permit the greatest 

 freedom in the fishery, but artificial propagation unaided can not 

 maintain fisheries that are conducted with such vigor and energ}> r that 

 the percentage of fish which reach the spawning grounds is each year 

 growing smaller. The Bureau can not contemplate without concern 

 the trend of the shad fisheries of Chesapeake Bay, the salmon fisheries 

 of Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, and the whitefish fisheries of the 

 Great Lakes, and believes that the situation demands the prompt atten- 

 tion of the various states concerned. The failure of these important 

 fisheries may not be imminent, but that it is certain, if the present 

 conditions are permitted to continue, no unbiased and well-informed 

 person can doubt. 



The regular fish-cultural work of the Bureau is now addressed to 

 about fifty different species, while a number of others are handled from 

 time to time, and new fishes are yearly added to the list of those culti- 

 vated. The list includes the principal food and game fishes in all parts 

 of the country, and so comprehensive have the operations become that 

 few economically important fishes of the lakes and streams are now 

 neglected. The salmon and bass families have the largest number of 

 species among those handled, but twelve other families also are 

 represented. 



Among the species propagated in larger numbers than in any pre- 

 vious year are the Pacific salmons, the lake trout, the cisco or lake 

 herring, the pike perch, the } r ellow perch, the large-mouth black bass, 

 the pollock, and the lobster. The output of whitefish, cod, and the 

 smaller trouts was of average size; and the shad was the only impor- 

 tant fish of which the yield was much smaller than usual. 



The operations of the salmon-hatching stations on the tributaries of the 

 Sacramento River, California, were more extensive than ever before, and 

 the take of eggs could have been considerabty increased had there been 

 facilities for handling it. The season closed with over 103,000,000 

 eggs (about 7,000 gallons) in the hatcheries. In marked contrast with 

 this work was that on the Columbia River and its tributaries, where 

 the egg collections amounted to only 30 per cent of those of the pre- 

 vious year, notwithstanding that the work was most actively pushed 

 and several new field stations were established. The unfavorable out- 

 come is attributed to the action of the state authorities in permitting 



