68 Fish Cultiirists Association 



is the tench, a special variety of the European tench, which has 

 many qualifications for a desirable fish. One is extreme 

 hardihood, and the other its ability to resist the desiccation of 

 the ponds. It can be cultivated in any mud-puddle, and when it 

 begins to dry up the fish buries itself in the dust, and the surface 

 may become perfectly hard, so that you can drive a wagon over 

 it ; and if you want a fish you can take it out with a spade ; 

 yet when a rain comes the fish will wiggle their way out, and 

 there they are. It grows with great rapidity and to a large size, 

 not unfrequently weighing ten, twenty, thirty, and even forty 

 pounds. Both the carp and the tench make flesh a great deal 

 more rapidly than any fish we cultivate. They are vegetable 

 eaters, and that is one great advantage over the trout, the black 

 bass, and other fish which are cultivated in limited enclosures. 

 Give to them a certain quantity of plants — rice, Canada wheat, 

 water-cresses, and the like — and they will find in them all the 

 sustenance they require. If you wish still to feed them, throw 

 in lettuce, cabbage, or other vegetable offal, which they will eat 

 very readily. 



The value, therefore, of the carp is very great. I never 

 tasted it, but I have the statements of those familiar with its 

 merits ; they admit that it is not as good as salmon or mackerel, 

 but they can be raised by anybody, and they are especially 

 adapted to the warm parts of the United States. The great 

 want is a fish that can be brought into the mill-ponds and warm 

 streams of water of the Southern and Gulf States, where the 

 trout cannot be introduced. The warmer the water the better 

 the carp thrives, and the best results in carp culture in Europe 

 have been in ponds connected witli low pressure steam-engines, 

 where the water is at a temperature of 90° to ioo°, and in those 

 ponds the carp grow with abnormal rapidity. I have been told 

 that in a single vear they have been known to make over four 



