jG Fish Culturists' Association. 



This year I have had applications from all the colonies of 

 Australia, and all in New Zealand, and from Chili, and other 

 places, for eggs, which I hope to furnish, they paying all the 

 necessary expenses attending it. Of course it would not be 

 proper to use the money of the United States in presenting 

 those eggs to foreign nations ; but the capacity of the salmon is 

 so great that, after meeting the calls of the State Commissioners, 

 there are millions which we can dispose of in this way in the 

 interest of humanity, to be distributed all over the world. 



Mr. Wilmot : Prof. Baird has said that the Bucksport 

 experiment had been abandoned on account of its expense. I 

 hope that is not to be the end. I should feel inclined to give 

 you some experiments I was engaged in last year with regard 

 to the new mode of retaining fish in salt water. The eggs 

 matured equally well in salt water as in fresh. Of course it is 

 well understood that for many years back, in fact for centuries, 

 naturalists have held that there was a necessity for salmon to go 

 to fresh water to mature their eggs. Last season I was under 

 the impression that the eggs of the salmon would mature if kept 

 in salt water as well as in fresh, and, in order to illustrate that, 

 I instructed one of my assistants to retain in the salt-water pond 

 a few parent salmon, while I put the rest in fresh-water ponds ; 

 and he did so, and took the eggs from them at the same time. 

 There was no perceptible difference noticed in the hatching of 

 the eggs from those fish last year. That being sufficient for me 

 to go upon, this season I retained fifty or sixty salmon in the 

 salt-water pond. The eggs matured just as well as those of the 

 fish in the fresh water. They were manipulated, and showed as 

 much vitality and life as those in the fresh water. They were 

 hatched in fresh water, but the fish were kept in the salt-water 

 cove. Therefore, to a certain extent, the expense of the Bucks- 

 port establishment might be saved. I think there the fish are 



