REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 67 



The Bureau has advocated and the Secretary has been pleased to 

 recommend to Congress that all bills for the establishment of fish 

 hatcheries in States contain the proviso that before any final steps 

 shall have been taken for the construction of fish-cultural stations 

 the State, through appropriate legislative action, shall accord to the 

 TJnited States Commissioner of Fisheries and his duly authorized 

 agents the right to conduct fish hatching and all operations connected 

 therewith in any manner and at any time that may be considered 

 by them necessary and proper, any fishery laws of the State to the 

 contrary notwithstanding. 



The Secretary has likewise accepted and has incorporated in com- 

 munications to Congress the Bureau's suggestion that the operations 

 of any hatcheries should be suspended by the Secretary of Commerce 

 and Labor whenever, in his judgment, the laws and regulations affect- 

 ing the fishes cultivated are allowed to remain so inadequate as to 

 impair the efficiency of said hatcheries. Both of these provisions 

 were approved by the Senate Committee on Fisheries. 



In the interest of closer relations with the States in this important 

 work it is recommended that the foregoing provisions be adhered 

 to and that every effort be made to have them enacted into law. 



FISHERY EXPERIMENT STATION AND LABORATORY. 



One of the most important needs of the Bureau of Fisheries at the 

 present time is an experiment station for the study of fish diseases 

 and the problems of fish breeding. This recommendation was the 

 subject of a special message from the President to the last Congress 

 and was embodied in a bill which was passed by the Senate. 



The Bureau is producing an annual output of young fish which 

 vv'Ould have, at the quotation of commercial fish culturists, a value 

 of $1,000,000 in the hatcheries. Domesticated fish, like other domesti- 

 cated animals, are subject to diseases not common to their wild state, 

 and lack of knowledge for the prevention or cure of epidemics is the 

 cause of serious loss to the public enterprise of fish culture. Not only 

 this, but the most prevalent fish disease in the hatcheries is a thyroid 

 tumor in trouts which has been shown to be of the same nature as 

 human cancer. Although there is no evidence that cancer in fishes 

 is communicable to man, the importance of pursuing investigation 

 of the presumable common cause is self-evident in its humanitarian 

 aspects. From the fish culturist's standpoint the question involves 

 the possible necessity of abandoning certain large trout hatcheries 

 where the prevalence of disease has made the operations unprofitable. 



Of permanent importance is experimental work in fish culture 

 similar to that conducted in plant and animal industry at agricul- 

 tural experiment stations. What selective breeding has done for 

 poultry, cattle, horses, and dogs, selective breeding may do for bass, 

 trout, and other fishes, but this is a subject to which as yet no atten- 



