Fish Cultctrists' Association. 23 



FISH CULTURE IN JAPAN AND CHINA. 



United States Consulate, 

 Kanagawa, September 5, 1872. 

 Hon. Charles Hale, 



Assistant Secretary of State, Washington : 



SiE. — Referring to yonr dispatch No. 60, 1 liave the honor to report, 

 that from the best information within my reach I glean the following 

 facts : 



In Japan there is no scientific or business method of propagating 

 fish. The great abundance of salt-water fish and the fact of but little 

 being used which is cot previously salted does not seem yet to involve 

 the necessity of propagation. A few daimios, chiefly in the south and 

 also in Kuishin, have transferred live fish when young (not two inches 

 long) from river to river, from river to pond, and from pond back to 

 river again. They are transferred in small flat vessels of water and 

 put into temporary artificial ponds made of puddled clay, only a few 

 inches deep, and covered with netting to keep the fish safe from attack 

 of birds. The gold-fish are treated in this way, as are also a kind of 

 fish called koi, which resemble somewhat carp, but are rounder. They 

 are fed on very small worms, dug out of mud at the bottom of stag- 

 nant or slow-running ditches. At the end of three weeks or so the 

 pond is made to communicate by a channel either with a larger pond 

 of old standing, or a river, and the artificial pond is thus emptied of 

 its stock. This is done in Hizen and Bingo for ornament of gardens. 



Salmon abound in the rivers on the western coast of Nipon, north 

 of this latitude, as do also black bass. Terso and its rivers teem with 

 salmon, tlie fishing for which by net on the sea-shore begins about 

 the 1st of September and ends about 27th of November. Fishing 

 for salmon by net is at present going on about eighty-five degrees 

 north-east from this port on the Pacific coast. 



I have the honor, sir, to be 



Your obedient servant, 



C. O. SHEPARD, 



Consul. 



