46 Thirtieth Annual Meeting 



fisli culture are so far reaching that the entire time of this meet- 

 ing might very profitably be taken up with the discussion of this 

 subject. We know that the fisheries have a great many limita- 

 tions on account of the laws, and there is a great lack of uni- 

 formity in the laws. A study of the subject and a report thereon 

 that would lead to uniformity in fish laws would be of the great- 

 est benefit to private fish culture. I have recently had some cor- 

 respondence from Montana on this subject. There the conditions 

 are dilferent from any of those that have already been mentioned, 

 and I have no doubt that if members from other states were to 

 tell of the conditions prevailing with them, that they would bf 

 seen to be still different. In Montana commercial fishing from 

 the streams is forbidden, but it is not forbidden to take fish from 

 the public waters for the stocking of private ponds, and many 

 people in Montana are industriously fishing to stock their pri- 

 vate j)onds and lakes. These immediately acquire a commercial 

 value, and the sale of fish from such waters goes on, so that any 

 one wanting to sell fish in Montana has only to get fish from the 

 luildic waters and put them for awhile in their private ponds 

 when they can be regarded as the result of fish culture. 



A few years ago the statistical division of the Fish Commis- 

 sion made a canvass of the fisheries of the interior waters, where 

 the commercial fisheries yielded over 50,000,000 pounds of fish. 

 This year the same region was canvassed and we found that since 

 the previous investigations the laws had been changed in many 

 of the states. In Kansas, for instance, you cannot fish except 

 with hook and line. The fish are no scarcer in these states but 

 the fishermen do not get them. Commercial fishing being cut off 

 in many states we found it useless to attempt a canvass of the 

 conmiercial fisheries of several sections of the west, because of 

 fish laws that prevent the utilizing of many kinds of fishes that 

 could be fallen if netting were permitted. Fish laws of the right 

 and proper kind need not break up all fishery industries. 



]\rr. Geo. F. Peabody, Appleton, Wis. : The work of stocking 

 the waters of Wisconsin by our State Fish Commission has been 

 generously and intcdligently done, and not only have the inland 

 waters been stocked and those waters which furnish sport to the 

 angler and the thousands who like to go fishing, but there have 



