18 Report of the American 



fagots placed in the water, and tliese spawn-covered fagots are sold 

 in the markets as with us are hens' eggs. Rice and fish form the 

 principal food of the Chinese. They are very cheap, hence " Chinese 

 cheap labor." Success with us in this industry will do much to 

 solve one of the most difficult and dangerous problems of the day, 

 the labor question. 



The Romans seem to have understood and extensively practiced 

 fish culture. They prepared large ponds, opening by canals to the 

 sea, through which fish passed seeking the fresh water spawning 

 grounds. The parent fish were prevented from returning by flood- 

 gates, which barred their progress to the sea, and while their progeny 

 were growing they supplied tlie market. The celebrated salmon- 

 breeding establishments in Norway, Scotland and Ireland, seemed to 

 have followed much the same plan. From tlie time of ancient Rome 

 we learn nothing of fish culture for several centuries. A little more 

 than a hundred years ago, a young German naturalist, ardently 

 devoted to the study of nature, was one day Ij'ing upon the bank of 

 a rippling brook, watching a number of fish engaged in spawning. 

 In pairs they had carefully removed the sediment from the gravelly 

 bottom, and by pressure of the abdomen upon the pebbles he saw 

 the eggs deposited by the females, quickly followed by the milt 

 deposit of the male fish. Thought he, why cannot I press the eggs 

 and the milt from the fish and hatch them in the little stream near 

 my cottage? He did it, and the name of Jacobi will live and be 

 honored among the great benefactors of the human race. It is but 

 fair to state, however, that the honor of first discovering the art of 

 artificial impregnation is claimed by several writers for the Monk 

 Dom Pinchon, of Rouen, France, in the fourteenth century. Yet 

 the science was not pursued practically to any extent, and the rivers 

 and lakes of Europe were, by the early part of the present century, 

 nearly depopulated of food fishes by the same causes that have so 

 thoroughly depleted our own — the erection of impassable dams, the 

 refuse of manufactories, and indiscriminate fishing. 



By the year ISttQ the question of cheap fish food for the masses 

 became of such importance that the French government invested a 

 large sum of money in the erection of the first piscicultural establisli- 

 ment at Huningue; and the grand results of their enlightened policy 

 have been felt all over Europe and in our own land. The following 

 graphic description, by a distinguished English writer, of the place 

 where practical fish culture was first instituted, will be of interest: 



