108 American Fisheries Society 



cars do this, but also our commodious State Fish Car "Badger," 

 which carries 200 of our ten-gallon shipping cans at a trip. Each 

 can contains the proper amount of fry according to distance it 

 is to travel, and has a chunk of ice on the cover to drip and keep 

 the water at the right temperature in the can below. 



The fish messengers are sent out with their alloted cans of fry, 

 holding them over perhaps at some junction, or, through some 

 delay, held up maybe a day at the railway station until the fish 

 are delivered to the applicants; or they may have orders to plant 

 the fish in the headwaters of a stream as soon as they can be 

 gotten there. Seldom indeed does a complaint come in that the 

 fish were not planted in good condition. 



Every can carried in a given shipment contains the same 

 number of fry or fingerlings. We measure all our fry by dry 

 measure at time of shipping, by means of small screen-bottom 

 dippers or strainers, each holding a certain number of fry or 

 fingerlings at different ages. I know of no method more accurate 

 or more easily operated than the above for measuring the fish put 

 into each can. 



As the hatchery tanks of fry are thinned out through shipping 

 they are filled again from the hatching troughs with those that 

 are coming on daily to the shipping age and size. They do not 

 hatch all at once nor reach the shipping condition at the same time. 



The several hundred thousand fry to be kept for fall shipment 

 are now removed to the outside rearing ponds, where they will 

 have more room, and the feeding, from six times a day, is cut 

 gradually to twice a day. 



The feeder is very careful that the fry all get some of the food, 

 scattering the little particles of meat or strained "plucks" over the 

 whole surface. He knows many anxious moments and days until 

 all are feeding well and they start to grow rapidly. If he can see 

 no dead ones on the clean gravel bottom, and they work to the 

 head of the pond and fight the current, even the fish hatchery man 

 feels some little joy in life. 



The rearing ponds above referred to are small in size, many of 

 them being almost square, while others are oblong, etc. We find, 

 however, that the most satisfactory ponds are those about 8 feet 

 wide, and from 30 to 50 feet in length, with a depth of 18 inches 

 to 2 feet of water. 



