FisJi Culturists' Association. . 19 



This subject is new to us, but is well worthy our attention. So far, 

 we have bent our energies to producing fish in vast numbers, with but 

 little consideration of the man}' delicate conditions necessary to their 

 future growth ; and in my opinion, if the rivers were as pure to-day as 

 when our forefathers landed on Plymouth Rock, there would now be the 

 same immense shoals of salmon, shad and alewives ascending our rivers 

 that there were then, multiplied tenfold by our methods of artificial 

 propagation. 



STOCKING DEPLETED WATERS. 



BY SETH GREEN. 



Gentlemen : — I have been worrying tuy brain for the last twelve years 

 in studying out the art of fish culture and the best way to stock our 

 depleted waters. In the year 1837 I commenced fishing as a business, 

 and followed it until 1860. I had sometimes as many as one hundred 

 men in my employ in taking and selling fish. I did my fishing with all 

 kinds of nets and lines, and in all kinds of waters, and had as good 

 success as any other fisherman in those days. When the weather was so 

 that any boat could live on the lake, my boat was sure to be there with 

 an early start. I have been capsized, and have ridden some time on the 

 bottom of my boat. I did not like it, but preferred it to not having 

 anything to ride on. I have rowed eighteen hours without getting off 

 my seat, and pulled every stroke for my life. The boat had stern way 

 on her six hours of the eighteen, with every man pulling his best. I was 

 fishing in Lake Ontario at the time, at a point four miles above the mouth 

 of the Genesee River. AVe started from shore at three in the morning, 

 in an open boat twenty feet long and seven feet beam ; myself, two men 

 and a boy comprising the crew. The lines were set twelve miles out in 

 the lake, and I was fishing for salmon trout, with set lines. I reached 

 my buoy at seven o'clock that morning, and had taken up four miles of 

 line when it blew so hard that the line broke. I started for shore with 

 the wind dead ahead and blowing a gale, and reached there at three 

 o'clock the next morning, landing at Braddock's Bay, three miles from 

 my cabin and forty rods from a fish shanty. I sent one of my crew to 

 Avake up the men ; in about five minutes more I sent another man, and in 

 about five minutes more myself and boy started for the same shanty. I 



