51 



I admit that there may, perhaps, be five per cent of these unavoid- 

 able deaths ; but that the rest come into being already doomed to pre- 

 matm-e death, or that young trout have any mysterious or peculiar 

 inherent cause of death in them, any more than young calves or pigs 

 or chickens, I do not believe. 



In the present state of information of the art, young trout fry may 

 be more liable to accidents than other young domesticated creatures, 

 and it may be more difficult to guard against their diseases, but this 

 is another thing. 



Careless breeding may, and careless hatching certainly will, produce 

 a progeny of young trout, of which 100 per cent will die, but this is 

 also another thing. 



Careful breeding and hatching will produce trout wliich are just as 

 likely to live, in my opinion, as the same number of lambs or chickens ; 

 and if the young fry die, it is not because of any mysterious disease, 

 or innate cause peculiar to them because tliey are trout, but it is 

 because they were killed by external causes, just as nmch as lambs or 

 chickens are killed by storms or by parasites, or from starvation or 

 poison. 



It is true that they are killed from ignorance of their wants, and 

 not from willful neglect, but it is the same thing abstractly ; the cause 

 of death is external and removable, and not innate nor necessary. 



Their wants are peculiar, of course, and more occult and intangible 

 than those of pigs and colts, and to a beginner it will sometimes seem 

 as if they died when nothing ailed them. But if they were as large 

 as pigs and colts, and could be studied as easily, I do not think their 

 wants would be found to be any more mysterious or peculiar ; and if 

 the causes of disease could be magnified so as to be observed and 

 studied clearly, I think that no more trout would die when nothing- 

 was the matter with them. 



I am furthermore convinced that study and experience will eventu- 

 ally clear up this subject, notwithstanding the difficulties which sur- 

 round it, and that some time it will be known how to raise trout, and 

 make them live, as well as it is known how to raise turkeys and 

 chickens. 



I believe that there are energy and intelligence enough now inter- 

 ested in the cause to accomplish this end ; and I think that the 

 beginner may accept these axioms in raising trout : 



1. ISTo trout dies without a cause. 



2. The causes of death are discernable. 



3. They can, in most instances, be removed. 



