54 Fish Guitarists' Association. 



possible, and they are capable of rearing in each of them from 

 two to ten millions of eggs, depending upon the description of 

 the eggs, and I am able to state that their present position is 

 most favorable. 



The question may be asked, " What success has attended the 

 efforts of Canada in the propagation of fish in this artificial way ?" 

 The specimen of fish hanging on the wall, to which the President 

 has referred, is, in my estimation, a proof of the value of the 

 artificial culture of fish in which I have been engaged. The 

 stream in which I have been operating, which has been almost 

 exclusively under my own cognizance, in 1865 or 1866 was almost 

 perfectly depleted of fish. No salmon, comparatively, entered it 

 at all. But from what we have done there last autumn, these 

 fishes were in thousands in that small stream, ranging from five 

 to twenty pounds' weight, coming back to a stream so small that 

 in many instances we have had to take rakes and hoes and spades 

 to make channels in the bed of the stream for the fish to come 

 up. The stream is so small that you can leap over it in any 

 portion of it except after heavy rains. It was larger many years 

 ago, but from the face of the country having been cleared off, the 

 consequence has been that the springs and smaller rivulets that 

 fed it have dried up, and the stream has been consequently very 

 much diminished in size ; so much so, that when we find large 

 salmon unable to get up and surmount the rapids, my men turn 

 out with their rakes and hoes to enlarge the channel through 

 which the fish pass and go into the building which has been 

 erected for them, where we gather the eggs. You see what can 

 be done in a few years with regard to reproducing, in a small 

 stream like this, that magnificent fish. I brought this specimen 

 in order that the gentlemen of this Association might see it. It 

 was caught in July last, immediately at the outlet of this small 

 stream in Lake Ontario. There was an effort made by our 



