Buck. — Increasing the Output 97 



Probably some part of the food should be such as the wild 

 fish are accustomed to take and access to running water is doubtless 

 desirable. All ways in which fish may be injured should be elim- 

 inated so far as may be. A brood stock may then be expected to 

 live longer and, as older fish produce more eggs than young ones, 

 the output will increase. But as the stock will inevitably grow less 

 in numbers each year, the final resource for maintaining and 

 increasing the output will be to add to the number of young 

 breeders. 



With pond fish, not artificially fed, the output may be increased 

 by increasing the number of breeders, provided the young are 

 promptly captured and given room elsewhere, but, since the limit 

 of food supply is soon reached in stocking a pond with brood fish, 

 more breeders may mean less output of young if all are left together. 

 Not only will the old fish eat the young, but the young will eat 

 one another. We all know this, but do not all agree as to what we 

 shall do about it. In one instance about fifty black bass breeders 

 were allowed to spawn in a pond of about a half acre, poorly 

 supplied with plants, and the young allowed to remain till about 

 the middle of July, when the pond was drawn and only thirteen 

 were found. In his "Aquatic Plants in Pond Culture" Mr. 

 Titcomb mentions an instance in which 20,000 young bass were 

 placed by themselves in a half-acre pond in April and eight weeks 

 later 6,000 well-grown fingerlings remained. In this case the pond 

 was well supplied with plants and insect fish food. 



It is probably clear to us all that young bass should be collected 

 and distributed very early, not to make a record, but to give them 

 their chance for life, which will be but slender if they are left in 

 the brood ponds with the parent fish and especially if the ponds 

 are stocked to the food limit or beyond. The question then comes 

 as to the mode of collecting the young. Since the food supply for 

 young and old depends on the maintenance of plant growth, it is 

 necessary to adopt a method which will leave the plants undis- 

 turbed. Fortunately, young bass soon after leaving the nest will 

 start on a tour of exploration around the margin of the pond, 

 going in schools and these schools may be captured with a fine 

 seine and placed in a tub or bucket, with small harm to fish or 

 plants. Those that escape capture may be allowed to remain 

 till fall, when the pond can be drawn. 



