Sixth Annual Meeting. 69 



pounds in weight. The carp is also a very hardy fish. You can 

 easily transport it. I have heard of cases where carp have been 

 kept five days out of water in damp moss. This is an advantage 

 in favor of distributing them. I therefore hope, as a result of 

 the new experiments now being made in Central Germany, the 

 results of which are to be expected here in April next, to be 

 able in a few years to supply breeding-carp in a great many 

 parts of the country, and perhaps in ten years it may be as 

 common here as in Europe. 



Mr. Wilmot : Do you say that the carp is well adapted for 

 mill-ponds ? 



Prof. Baird : Any sluggish, stagnant water. It does not 

 thrive in spring- water. 



Mr. Wilmot : Would it suit the disposition of gentlemen 

 who have ponds and small streams ? Are they not desirous of 

 combining fish well adapted for food, and at the same time 

 having gamey qualities as far as sporting is concerned ? Would 

 they consent to introduce a fish from which they could derive 

 no advantage themselves, except from their marketable value, 

 when they are a very inferior fish for the market, being inferior 

 to trout. 



Prof. Baird : Our great object is to increase the amount of 

 animal food in the country, and it is purely a matter of cookery 

 to make it palatable. If we can introduce a fish that asks no 

 favor in the way of food, and that will furnish, as I am credit- 

 ably informed, 1,200 pounds annually to the acre, that is a great 

 deal better fish to have than many that we now have. 



Mr. Wilmot : That is, by giving them additional food ? 



Prof. Baird : Without feeding them at all. I am told that it 

 is not an uncommon thing for the ponds in Germany to furnish 

 annually four hundred carp to the acre, each carp weighing 



