Fish Cit/turists' Association. 



destroyed in some instances, as with the salmon fisheries in Lake 

 Ontario,, and the northern portion of the State of New York. 

 The Middle and Eastern States had been the first to suffer ; in 

 New England the salmon had diminished greatly in the once 

 prolific streams of Maine, and had disappeared from the 

 Connecticut River ; shad, alewives, and herring, were growing 

 scarcer yearly, while the cod fisheries had been driven from our 

 coasts to the banks of New Foundland. In the Hudson River 

 the shad fisheries were being abandoned at many stations. 

 In the Delaware the yield has been enormously reduced, and 

 destruction was impending over the James and other more 

 southerly rivers. Smaller streams in some localities had been 

 left utterly bare of fish, and everywhere the most delicate and 

 attractive species ; the brook-trout had diminished to little more 

 than a memory of the past. The time had arrived when, if our 

 fish supply was to be saved at all, it had to be looked after. 



The first attempts at fish culture in this country were met 

 with ridicule and opposition, but nothing could deter the 

 enthusiasts who had taken it in charge. The shrewdest of these 

 perceived it not merely an immense benefit to the country at 

 large, but a source of private profit. Trout breeding was 

 commenced as a commercial enterprise, and discoveries were 

 soon made which placed America at the very head of fish culture. 

 Seth Green, at his private establishment at Caledonia, discovered 

 the principle of dry impregnation, but as he kept the process a 

 secret, it was not generally known till it was re-discovered 

 abroad and came back to us from Russia. He next invented 

 his shad hatching-box, which has been so universally employed 

 since. Ainsworth substituted screens for troughs in trout 

 hatching, and Holton improved on the idea in his box with the 

 water rising from below instead of falling from above — an 

 invention specially adapted to the breeding of white-fish. All 



