674 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [2] 
cured in the easiest and cheapest manner, instead of obtaining them 
’ from a distance at a comparatively great expense. 
The beau ideal of carp-raising would be the following plan: Every owner 
of ground should toward the end of May select a dry piece of ground, 
well warmed through by the sun—say one-half hectare in extent—and 
fill it with water from a running stream or brook to the height of three- 
quarters to one meter, and thus form a so-called “sky-pond.” Pike 
should positively be kept out of such a pond, which is much easier con- 
structed than is generally supposed, especially if one does not mind the 
small expense of inclosing it with a low dike. Most estates have suf- 
ficient running water to keep the water at the same height all the time. 
The next thing would be to procure from some reliable establishment 
one spawner and two milters, place them in the pond, and also put in 
it a quantity of brush-wood of pine, juniper, birch, &c.; and one may 
with certainty count on seeing this brush-wood, in June, when the sun 
has warmed the water, and again in August, covered with numberless 
carp eggs. A female carp is said to contain about one-half million eggs. 
This figure may bea little exaggerated, but Mr. Gasch, whose pamphlet 
has been spoken of above, and who, for his carp culture, received the 
gold medal at the Berlin International Fishery Exposition, calls 60,000 
young carp to one-half hectare a very common result. He also assures us 
that 1,000 young fish of this description, in a pond measuring one-half 
hectare, reach the length of 20 centimeters (in exceptional cases 15 or 
25 centimeters) the same summer in which they first saw the light of 
this world, without giving them any food. As such a carp is worth 20 
pfennig (5 cents), the revenue from one-half hectare, from the end of 
June till October, would be 200 mark ($47.60). This astonishing devel- 
opment of the young carp was owing to the faet that they always had 
abundant food. When the 60,000 young fish first left their eggs, they 
found sufficient food on one-half hectare, but as they grew in weight 
and size they needed a larger extent of pond, which in four mounths 
increased from one-half hectare to 60 hectares. The small spawning- 
pond cannot supply sufficient food tillautumn, and evenifthe fish escape 
starvation, they will always be in poor condition. As our, ideal “ sky- 
pond” is of course supposed to enjoy the advantage of a most favorable 
location, we permit the young fish, when they have reached the length 
of a few centimeters, and need a larger extent of water, to slip through 
the grating which closes the pond, in order to scatter over the river 
or lake, or we let the entire contents of the pond flow into the river or 
lake. If this is not possible, we assign to the fish a larger space from 
the very beginning. Fifty thousand young fish can live very well till 
October in one hectare of water, and be successfully used for stocking 
other waters, although they will not reach that degree of development 
which Mr. Gasch attains for his fish. The fish may also be fed with 
boiled potatoes, broken into small pieces, kitchen refuse, linseed cake, 
manure, &c¢. 
