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raise 1,000 trout a year, but a handsome income will be made from 

 raising 10,000 a year. I find that the cost of growing trout is very 

 small indeed, and that the returns are very large indeed. It costs no 

 more to keep 1,000 trout each, of the three different sizes, springlings, 

 yearlings, and two-year olds, than it does in the country to keep a 

 horse ; and what would keep a pair of horses in the city at a stable, 

 would enable a man to turn out 5,000 pounds of trout a year. 



The current expenses of a trout breeding establishment consist of 

 three classes, viz. : 



(1.) The rent of the place, or the interest on the original outlay, 

 plus the wear and tear, which together should be reckoned at twelve 

 per cent. 



(2.) The care of the fish, which is not much for a small stock of trout, 

 and grows comparatively less, the more fish you have. 



(3.) The cost of feed, which is very small, amounting perhaps to 

 three cents a pound ; all which items of expense do not make the 

 full grown trout cost over fifteen or twenty cents a pound, if success- 

 fully raised. On the other hand, trout bring from fifty cents a pound 

 to $1.25 ; seventy-five cents being, I should say, a fair average, at the 

 present time, in the neighborhood of Boston and New York. 



Here we see a large margin for profit, and I think a fair one, when 

 a man raises his trout successfully, and all depends upon this, of 

 course. If he cannot keep his trout alive and secure, he cannot expect 

 to make anything at the business. I should say the following esti- 

 mate approximated the truth : 



If yon have first-rate water facilities, and should hatch 20,000 

 young fry, and raise them all to be four years old, on food at three 

 cents per pound, they would cost you, after you began to market the 

 fish, not over eighteen cents a pound. If you raise half, all your 

 expenses being the same, with the exception of food, they will cost 

 about twenty-four cents a pound. If you raise one-fourth, they will 

 cost somewhere near thirty-six cents per pound. If you raise one- 

 eighth, about fifty-four cents per pound. If you raise less than this 

 they will cease to pay a profit. To assist the beginner in estimating 

 his expected expenses and returns, I will give the following maxims. 



(a.) Under favorable circumstances, five pounds of meat food may 

 be considered an equivalent for one pound of trout growth, with two- 

 year-olds and three year-olds. 



(b.) For any given quantity of two or three-year-olds, one per 

 cunit of their weight may be regarded as an adequate average daily 

 i-ation the year round. 



