[9] A FOREIGN REVIEW OF AMERICAN FISH CULTURE. 485 
was placed in charge of these experiments, went to California during 
September of that year, thinking that he would arrive before the begin- 
ning of the spawning season, but he was too late, and it was only possi- 
ble to gather a few thousand eggs, because the California salmon spawns 
much earlier than the common salmon, towards the end of August. 
Mr. Stone, however, did not make his first journey entirely in vain, 
as he gathered much valuable information which enabled him to repeat 
the experiment during the following year under more favorable circum- 
stances. The river McCloud was selected as the center of operations. 
This river, fed by the melting snow of Mount Shasta, has plenty of very 
cold water; which is not, like many other California rivers, made turbid 
by the washing of auriferous minerals. The hatching places are there- 
fore always visited by numerous salmon. 
On the banks of this river, and surrounded by Indian tribes, who, if 
not openly hostile, are at any rate not very kindly disposed towards the 
“nale faces,” Mr. Livingston Stone pitched his tent, and laid the foun- 
dation of a fishing and piscicultural station,'® whither he goes every year 
for four or five months, to gather salmon eggs, to fecundate them arti- 
ficially, and to submit them to the beginning of the incubating process‘ 
because only when the eggs have become embryonated can they be sent 
to great distances without much difficulty. 
On account of the large number of fish operated upon,” and the 
equally large number of eggs harvested (often nearly 10,000,000) these 
different operations represent a considerable amount of labor, A bar- 
rier stretched across the river stops the salmon in their ascent, and 
permits their being captured by means of immense seines. It is neces- 
sary that this barrier—a sort of palisade composed of poles placed 
close to each other—should be very solid, for the legions of salmon, 
often of enormous size, which throw themselves against it sometimes 
force a breach and succeed in making their escape. The labor of re- 
pairing such breaches, which of course ought to be done just as quickly 
as possible, is very difficult, obliging men to stand in the water, some- 
times up to their neck; and this water, produced by the melting snow, 
is always very cold, even in summer resembling ice-water. 
For the purpose of storing the captured fish, a “park” or corral has 
also been constructed here, by means of a row of palisades in the bed 
of the river. From this “corral”, containing the direct products of 
the fisheries, the men in charge of the fecundation, draw the salmon 
which they need. But it is no easy matter to free these fish from their 
19The encampment has been called Baird, in honor of the distinguished Commissioner 
of Fisheries. 
2 The eggs and milt which are harvested are all furnished by 5,000 or 6,000 salmon ; 
but, in order to procure that number of fish ready to spawn immediately, forty or 
fifty times asmany have to be caught. It isnot a rare occurrence at Camp Baird, that 
from 7,000 to 9,000 salmon are caught a day; for a single haul of the seine often 
brings up 1,200 to 1,400; but it likewise often happens that, among several thousand, 
only a few hundred are able to furnish spawn immediately. 
