34 Fish Culturists' Association. 



Hon. H. J. Reeder, Fish Commissioner of Pennsylvania, 

 said : 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : I must ask you to excuse 

 me from making any remarks in reference to this subject to-day, 

 as I am suffering from a severe indisposition, and it is only at 

 the sacrifice of my personal comfort and convenience that I am 

 able to be here at all. I want simply to make one remark in 

 connection with the subject that was touched upon by Prof. 

 Lyman in speaking of Fish-Ways. The difficulty is in perfecting 

 a fish-way which will successfully carry shad over a high dam. 

 We in Pennsylvania claim that we have succeeded in building a 

 fish-way which is successful in affording a means of transit for 

 shad over a low dam. We have not succeeded to a very great ex- 

 tent with respect to a high dam, nor do I believe that any fish-way 

 would ever succeed to a very great extent unless the very propo- 

 sition suggested by Prof. Lyman were adopted, namely : a means 

 of leading the shad into the fish-way by an arrangement of the 

 weir. We have discussed the matter in our Commission very 

 thoroughly. We have never tried the experiment, for the reason 

 that it is an exceedingly expensive operation. We have never 

 had the opportunity of testing the Pennsylvania weir until this 

 year, when the dam, in. which it was erected, was repaired in 

 those parts in which breaks had been made by the spring floods, 

 and ice carried down by the torrents. This year the shad passed 

 above our dam and most certainly have gone through the fish- 

 way to the number of five thousand ; that is, we know of five 

 thousand shad that were caught this year above the Columbia 

 dam, in which our fish-way was erected. The supposition is that 

 not more than twenty per cent, of the entire shad that effected a 

 transit over our dam, by means of the fish-way, were caught by 

 the fishermen. We are warranted consequently in deducting, 



