American Fisheries Society. 153 



tinge of pathos in his voice : "He isn't with ns now." The 

 tone, supplementing- the picture, told the whole story. 



2. Care of ireaJi-Ungs. Quite recently I talked on this sub- 

 ject with a fish culturist, who hears a most excellent reputation 

 for careful, conscientious work. lie lamented the difficulty and 

 tediousncss of feeding the weaklings who had fallen hack to the 

 tail screen. Said he : "T can't feed them there satisfactorily so 

 I take them up with a net and carry them to the head end before 

 I feed the trough." "But are they not back at the tail by the 

 next feed time ?" "Yes, that's true, they are and it takes consid- 

 erable labor to repeat the operation each time. I suppose Supt. 

 Blank thinks I consume a great deal of unnecessary time in so 

 doing, but I can't feed them with any measiire of success other- 

 wise." Troughs need constant thinning, when you have these 

 weaklings in the net, Mdiy not transfer them to a different 

 trough along with other similar unfortunates thereby really com- 

 bining in this one act the three operations of thinning, sorting 

 and caring for the weaklings. Give these latter several salt 

 baths to cure the frayed and fungused fins and heal the con- 

 gested gills. A little extra attention in feeding and you soon 

 have a trough of average fry out of your hospital. Visitors fre- 

 quently comment on the almost entire absence of fish at the 

 lower end of our troughs. Yet up to the present time, we have 

 done no sorting except by this simple method. Always do your 

 thinning from the tail end. Lea^■e your strong head-enders to- 

 gether. Feeding is greatly facilitated as well as simj^lified. We 

 rarely consume thirty minutes in thoroughly feeding about 

 125,000 trout and salmon fry, now being carried to the finger- 

 ling stage, and occupying some thirty troughs and ten ponds. 



Traitsf erring from trough to [lorul. One great drawback 

 tliat the young fish c^^lturist experiences is the difficulty of find- 

 ing recent text books. Our authorities are largely out of date, 

 their methods obsolete. Quoting from a standard authority: 

 "The rearing ponds are stocked gradually, 500 to 1,009 being 

 placed in the pond aiid trained to take food before more are 

 added, as that number can generally find enough food to subsist 

 upon until they learn to take artificial food. When they have 

 been accustomed to hand feeding, another 1,000 fish are added 



