20 Report of the American 



had got about half way to it when I found one of mj' men lying on the 

 sand fast asleep in a pouring rain. I got him to his feet, went to the 

 shanty, and found the door open and the legs of my first messenger 

 sticking out over the threshold, and he, too, was fast asleep. After 

 pulling the latch string he had fallen in without waking the fishermen in 

 the hut. We got the latter up, and stowed ourselves away in their warm 

 beds, and that was the last any of us knew for the next twelve hours. I 

 took, or caused to be taken, from a half ton to three tons of fish dail^'for 

 twenty years of the early part of my life, and think I know all the devices 

 for taking fish, from a pin hook to a pound net. I have used all of them, 

 and have probabl}' done as much toward cleaning out the waters of this 

 State as any man, and that is the reason, I suppose, why people think I 

 should know some thing about restocking these waters. The great secret 

 in this work is in putting fish in the waters suited to them. INIan^' bodies 

 of water are suited to kinds of fish that never were in them before, but 

 all waters are not fit for all kinds of fish, and 3'ou might better put them 

 on the land than in water not suited to them ; they will not thrive. The 

 waters into which 3'ou put fish m*list have the right kind of food for them, 

 and 3'ou must know if it is there, and it is a mistaken idea that some 

 people have that fish will live on water ; they cannot aiw more than yon 

 can live on air. 



Many of the States have fish commissioners, and this State has three — 

 Gov. Seymour, Eobt. B. Roosevelt and Edwaid M. Smith. I am their 

 superintendent, and being one of the oldest in the business, and having 

 probably seen as much of it from the bottom to the top as any, I take 

 the libert}' to give you my opinion of what kind of men you want for fish 

 commissioners. You want wealth}', public spirited men — three such men. 

 The superintendent must be a practical fisherman, who knows how to 

 take all kinds of fish in all sorts of inland waters, and if you can get a man 

 who is a fish culturist as well as a fisherman, all the better. If 3'ou have 

 to employ a man who has but one of these qualifications, the fisherman is 

 the more valuable. You must know how to take fish to have them for 

 stocking your waters. I, of couise, think our State the model one in 

 these respects. The commissioners and m3-self have been operating 

 together for the last six 3'ears, and never have had an}' discord that we 

 did not settle at the time. We get together once a 3'ear, la3' our plans, 

 and then live up to them. There was a time when I thought I knew 

 more than the3- did about the business ; but the}" have caught up 

 with me and I don't know but what the3' are a little ahead, for the}' know 

 all that I do, besides what the3' have learned from ever3"bod3' else. We 

 have now practical knowledge enough to stock all our waters, but the 

 great secret is to do it in the right wa3'. All our used up shad rivers can 



