122 Tliirti/'Firsf A uuiial Me ding 



ponds will tend to strongly invigorate the tront. In traveling 

 throngh the tront country of the Lanrentian ^Mountains in 

 Canada T was very nnich surprised to find lakes teeming with 

 tront where the stock had apparently run down. I conld not find 

 any other reason for it excejit in hreeding. The ponds were of 

 large size, full of food, l)ut the fish were small and the eggs of 

 very inferior quality. In fact, at one place where I was trying to 

 colk'ct the spawn of the wild trout in the Lanrentian ^lountains, 

 we took something like 6,000 fish on the spawning heds, and in a 

 week's time got less than 100,000 eggs from those fish. The 

 eggs were inferior and seemed to he diseased. The fish them- 

 selves were apparently all right — good eating, and rather thin, 

 notwithstanding the ahundance of food. That idea of introduc- 

 ing new stock I think should he carried out very frequently in 

 connection M'ith our work. I ha\e carried out that idea, so far as 

 possible, in connection with the collection of eggs of the wild 

 troiit from different waters. When returning a proper quota of 

 product of these eggs to the waters where we made our collec- 

 tions, instead of returning the product of the eggs that were col- 

 lected at any particular station, we took the hatch of eggs taken 

 from some other point, and each year changed them around, so 

 that at all of our collecting stations new l)lood was introduced 

 annually. 



Dr. Birge : I would like to ask whether any fish culturists 

 have tried this method ^Ir. Sykes speaks of of selecting the in- 

 dividual fish to Ijreed from to kee]i up the stock of breeders. 



^Ir. Titcoml): I know to a cei'tainty that one of the fish cul- 

 turists in ^Ir. Lane's neighborhood sek>cts the larger fry — that 

 is. wbc!) lie sorts out his fry he takes the larger ones. Sometimes 

 you will (ind, as you know, fry two inches long in with fry of the 

 same age or about an inch in length. 



Anothoi- point we miglit consider is that the commercial fish 

 cultui'isls ai'c rearing tront for tlu' markt't. and the market de- 

 mands a small fisli. Tbe result is tliat they are taking most of 

 tlu'ir eggs from fish a year and a half old, what we call yearlings, 

 and those eggs are very infcn'ior to the eggs of the fish a year 

 older. Tbe I'nited States Commission in ol)taining eggs have 

 adojiteil a rule not to accept any eggs from fish less than two and 

 a hair years old, for that reason, but the tendency of distributing 



