214 American Fisheries Society 



at our hatcheries before they begin to feed; this is when 

 we attempt to hold them in the troughs until after the 

 cold weather and spring freshets have passed. Brook 

 trout did not exist in two-thirds of the streams in Wis- 

 consin until stocked with fry during the winter months. 

 Our instructions to applicants are to be sure to plant the 

 little fellows in the headwaters of the streams, and I feel 

 sure that no state or country has had any better results 

 in the stocking of streams than we have. 



On the other hand we do not like to send out fish in 

 the winter season on account of weather conditions and 

 the difficulty in getting them to the streams. Many of 

 the waters are frozen over, and often we have deep snow 

 with which to contend. The people are beginning to ask 

 more for fingerlings, but heretofore we have not had the 

 quality of water at our hatcheries to grow large numbers 

 of fry to the fingerling size. We now think we have the 

 water at our new hatchery at St. Croix Falls, in the north- 

 western part of the state, in which with care we can grow 

 fish with very small loss. We intend to raise more 

 brook trout fry to the fingerling size, and not plant 

 until all danger of spring freshets has passed. Whether 

 we shall get any better results is a question in my mind. 

 One thing we do know, however, is that we shall be pleas- 

 ing a great many more people; also that we shall be able 

 to make annual allotments to all the streams we think 

 adapted to brook trout, though, of course, not giving each 

 stream as large numbers as if we sent out fry. 



For many years I have been studying the quality of 

 waters we use for the raising of brook trout, and have 

 learned which are suitable, simply by comparing the num- 

 ber of fish planted in various streams with the number 

 taken from them in after years. Streams that we for- 

 merly thought were excellent for trout often did not show 



