36 Report of the American 



experience of at least forty centuries, the}- must have discovered and put 

 to practical use all the methods and appliances of pisciculture as prac- 

 tised by the Caucasian race. I am aware that European and American 

 scientists hold fast to the theory that we are wholly indebted to Jacobi, 

 of Hoenhausen. and after that to Joseph Remi, of Bressi, for the theory' 

 as well as the practice of artificial impregnation ; but I believe the 

 Chinese discovered, centuries ago, the same system of manipulating the 

 ova and the milt b}' artificial methods. The Chinese 'show wonderful 

 ingenuity and inexhaustible patience in securing the eggs after impreg- 

 nation, in raising the infants, and in filling the lakes, rivers and streams 

 with the best and most profitable species, as well as sending the fish to 

 the most distant portions of that vast empire of eighteen provinces, any 

 one of which has a population perhaps greater than the whole United 

 States. The}" are verj- particular about catching their food fish ; if small 

 ones are caught, they are returned to the water to increase. This is the 

 effect of long custom, to them more powerful than any written code ; 

 they save where we waste. The}' have several ingenious methods of 

 driving the fish to the nets b}' arranging a cordon of boats at one end of 

 the pond or lake, and beating tom-toms and gongs in unison, so that the 

 tinny tribe, alarmed by the din and noise, swim away from it, and are 

 caught in the meshes of the nets at the other end. The practice of 

 employing that unwieldy bird, the cormorant, as a fish catcher, is curious 

 as well as original. To describe the process would take up too much of 

 3"our space. 



It may be proper to ask here. Of what use is all this labor in stocking 

 our exhausted water-courses with fish, if we still permit all the scourge 

 of our cities and tow-ns, all the liquid poisons from our manufacturing 

 establishments, to kill the fish after you have taken so much pains to 

 hatch them? Mr. Seth Green and Mr. Fred Mather have spoken well 

 and vigorousl}' on the subject. Our laws are notoriously defective, yet 

 the Chinese show the greatest care in keeping the waters free from taint 

 and poison. There the all-powerful custom, the unwritten law, deeply 

 graven on the hearts of the people, is all sufficient, hence their rivers are 

 probably as full of fish to-da}' as the}' were 1,000 years ago. We, 

 with the recklessness that characterizes our race, introduce the foul filth 

 of our sewers at our very bed sides, through the vents of our marble 

 basins. We pour all this liquid excrement into our rivers — millions on 

 millions of tons every year — wliich, if placed on our fields, would make 

 the waste spots bloom with beauty, and then we send to the Chincha 

 Islands for guano. We call our race civilized, and the Mongolian 

 savage. In China, every atom of this human excrement, as well as the 

 deposits of animals, is saved. It is carried away from the houses each 



