542 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [10] 
peas (a small early variety of green peas); the second year, rape, and 
in exceptional cases, potatoes; the third year, wheat (on heavy soil, 
Galician wheat, and on loamy humus soil, Frankenstein wheat) mize 
with clover, so ae deine the fourth and fifth years clover finishes the 
agricultural period.of the pond. I take the special precaution to add 
some grass-seed to the clover for those portions of the wheat-fields 
which lie on the higher portions of the ponds, with the view of furnish- 
ing better pasture for my cattle when at some future time they will seek 
their food in the ponds. 
I prefer to close the agricultural period of my ponds with clover, 
because the remnants of clover will furnish a very large quantity of 
vegetable food for insects, and will thereby supply a large amount of 
food for the fish, which eventually will benefit me by producing larger 
and finer fish. 
After all my experience I can say that my safest harvests have always 
been those gathered from my ponds, and that I have found pond-culti- 
vation productive of a decided addition to my annual income. 
Although I cannot but highly recommend to all farmers the plowing 
and planting of their ponds, I must caution them to be careful not to 
plow too close to the dikes, because by doing so they run the risk of 
destroying the reeds, which are of primary importance to the safety of 
the dike. J always leave about 2 to 4 meters from the base of the dike, 
which the plow never touches, and wherel do not even mow, because in 
stormy weather the waves will be broken by the reeds, especially if by 
the growth of years they have become very dense. It is, under all cir- 
cumstances, a2 much cheaper way of saving the dikes and keeping them 
in repair, than to erect stone dikes or walls (as in the Rosenberg pond). 
Where no reeds are growing below the base of the dike they can easily 
be supplied by cutting some reeds in the pond deep under the water 
and laying these in the water near the dike, where they will soon send 
out water-roots towards the bottom and thus grow and flourish near the 
dike. 
I will also mention here that localities which, probably owing to the 
lack of forests, suffer from aridity, may have their climate changed in 
a very cheap and profitable manner, vy the filling with water of a num- 
ber of large ponds. 
I will here close my communication, which has come from the unprac- 
ticed pen of a practical farmer, and which does not in the least claim 
the merits of a literary production. Nor will this be required of a work 
like the present, because it simply intends to add another contribution 
to the experience of those who have given some attention to fresh-water 
fisheries (pond-fisheries) and the farming operations connected there- 
with. I know very well that I am still far from the limit of the possible 
in this line, but I honestly claim that, as far as my experiments go, they 
have been very successful. I shall of course not rest contented on my 
laurels. I would, in conclusion, direct attention to the circumstance that 
