1 6 Fish Culturists Association. 



in our permanent list ; and the oyster fisheries, while receiving- 

 careful supervision from the Commissioners in several states, 

 have become in private hands vastly profitable. M*any most 

 interesting experiments have been made ; sea fishes have been 

 confined in fresh waters, fresh-water fishes allowed to visit the 

 ocean, shad have been carried to Michigan and to the head 

 waters of the Mississippi River, and even to the Pacific coast 

 where they had heretofore no existence. Black bass have been 

 brought East and neutralized in the lakes and ponds of New 

 England and the Middle States ; while salmon, trout, and white- 

 fish have been distributed throughout the great West. California 

 salmon have been placed in the Delaware and the Hudson, and 

 white-fish sent to California. Already nineteen states of the 

 Union, one Territory, and the United States, have appointed 

 Fishery Commissioners, who have displayed great enthusiasm 

 and commendable energy ; and attention is being paid to fish 

 culture in all the more advanced portions of our country which 

 nature has peculiarly adapted to it. In America are to be found 

 the largest lakes, constituting almost inland seas, the longest 

 rivers, the greatest net-work of streams, and the most remarkable 

 variety of water in the world ; while to fill these with food we 

 have species of fish the most productive and the best suited to 

 artificial manipulation. The shad produces its eight or ten 

 thousand eggs to each pound of weight ; the black bass guards 

 its young from danger till they can protect themselves, and the 

 California salmon will endure a warmth of temperature which 

 would destroy the salmon of Canada and Europe. Of water we 

 have all sorts — clear, confined, turbulent, stagnant, extended, 

 and limited ; the purling brook, the stately river, the vast lake, 

 varying in temperature at all degrees, from the hot springs of 

 the West, to the mountain trout-stream and the icy spring — even 

 underground ponds and streams inhabited bv eveless fish. There 



