[25 | ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF FISH. 515 
restocking the rivers makes itself felt, are preferable to establishments 
on as large a scale as the one founded by the French Government at 
Hiiningen. In order to justify this assertion, it will suffice to state that 
one is very apt to make a miscalculation in concentrating all fhe means 
for stocking water-courses at his command on a single poinf. Fish are 
subject tomany contagious diseases. Parasitical conferve, which attack 
both the eggs and the young fish, and even at times tolerably large 
fish, may at a single stroke destroy all that which has been prepared at 
great expense. 
Small establishments will also occasion smaller losses, and can easier 
be removed to some new locality ; one can, moreover, hatch the eggs in 
water which suits the species, and the expenses incidental to the trans- 
portation of fish are saved. 
The art of propagating fish artificially is of too recent date to expect 
that the rules and hints given above are not to be modified or changed 
in many respects, and that they may not possibly be entirely replaced 
by other rules based on more recent experiments. 
We have indicated those methods which, in our opinion, are the best, 
and which agree most with those principles which practice and nature 
have, so far, pointed out to us. The possibility, or rather the certainty, 
of changes and improvements which may considerably modify these 
principles, is still another reason in favor of cheap establishments. 
In conclusion, we must make the following remarks: A somewhat 
lively imagination may see in the artificial propagation of fish an un- 
limited source of production, which may render applicable to our rivers 
and lakes what is said of the river Theiss in Hungary, that it contains 
one-third water and two-thirds fish. We consider artificial propaga- 
tion of fish simply as the means of bringing the finny population of our 
rivers and water-courses back to that degree of prosperity which they 
enjoyed before steam navigation, various industries, and other causes 
of destruction threatened our fisheries with slow but gradual ruin. We 
look upon the artificial propagation of fish simply as a means of stock- 
ing our rivers with fish quicker than nature can do it; but this object 
can only be attained if sufficient care is bestowed upon the preservation 
of the young fish, thus artificially produced, after they have been placed 
in the water. It should not be forgotten that it would, be useless to 
stock our waters with choice kinds of tish if these were left to the mercy 
of the ignorant and indolent inhabitants of the river banks. 
The artificial propagation of fish, is not, and cannot be, a substitute 
for a well-regulated management of the water courses and their fisheries, 
but should only be considered as a powerful aid to pisciculture; it can- 
not, therefore, render unnecessary legislative provisions protecting and 
restricting the fisheries. Establishments for propagating fish artificially 
are to pisciculture what nurseries are to fofest culture; and as forest 
culture would be useless if the irregular and destructive management 
of forests continues, thus the artificial propagation of fish would not aid 
