676 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [4] 
est in water culture, and there is avery general and growing conscious- 
ness of our duties with regard to our large ana beautiful lakes and rivers. 
The hope may therefore not be in vain that landed proprietors of liberal 
views, and more especially the largest landed proprietor, the State, 
will here and there, in their fields or forests or along their rivers, con- 
struct spawning-ponds of 4 hectare, buy 3 spawning carp for 10 mark 
($2.38), and annually let 60,000 young carp loose in the rivers. An 
example will show what may be accomplished with very small means. 
When in the autumn of 1881 I visited some of the forests on the shores 
of the Stettiner Haff, in company with Counsellor von Biinau and the 
Royal Forester Baron von Diicker, for the purpose of finding suitable 
places for constructing spawning-ponds for carp, we found that Baron 
von Diicker had already, by irrigating certain portions of these forests, 
constructed the necessary ponds by simply closing those ditches through 
which in former times several of the ponds and one lake had been drained. ° 
At an expense of only 71 mark 69 pfennig ($17.19), four ponds had been 
constructed with a total area of 101 hectares, and by a further expense of 
3,500 marks ($833) all the other necessary arrangements could be made. 
With just as small an expense, spawning-ponds with a total area of 700 
to 1,000 hectares could easily be constructed in all the forests on the 
shores of the Stettiner Haff. The 101 hectares already in existence 
could probably furnish at least 5,000,000 carp per annum, and therefore 
produce the quantity demanded by me (20,000,000) in four years. 
Magnificent carp, both as to size and flavor, are caught here and there 
in our rivers, and there is hardly a doubt that they have, when young, 
escaped from some piscicultural establishment, or that, because not 
needed there, they have been purposely set at liberty. 
As not all those persons who would like to raise young carp are 
able to construct spawning-ponds, I make the following proposition, 
which I do not consider chimerical, and which is well worth a trial. I 
must state expressly, however, that I have not personally made the 
experiment. At the International Fishery Exposition in Berlin, there 
was exhibited in the Swedish department a spawning-box which had 
been used in Sweden since 1761 for bleak and other fish, and might also 
be used for carp. It is very spacious, made of perforated boards, and 
the inside is covered with pine brush. At the beginning of the spawn- 
ing season it is stocked with male’and female fish, which deposit their 
eggs on the brush-wood, and are thereupon let out through an opening 
in the side of the box. The spawning carp have to be removed, for if 
they remained in the box they would either injure or devour the eggs. 
The fish may also, when taken from the box, be placed in a small pond, 
where they will sufficiently recover to be fit for another spawning. The 
box is secured by an anchor and floats about in the water; by the mo- 
tion, the water 1s constantly renewed, and any injury from strong waves 
is averted. As soon as the young fish can swimn the box is opened, so 
that they can go out into the open water. It would be an advantage 
