53 Thirty-Si'cand Annual Mectiny 



that made b}^ the g-entleman from Peoria today. 1 am very glad 

 of it. I do not know of any man that I sympathized with more, 

 than with our honored secretary in the paper that he presented. 

 I do not know whether he sent me a copy of the paper which I 

 received — perhaps he is too modest to do it. He wrote a letter 

 to a Wisconsin paper, a column and a quarter long, and put the 

 carp right where it ought to be placed. I am not prepared to 

 make any extended remarks, but want to say Just one more 

 thing: I enjoy these meetings and I regi-et that I could not ])e 

 at the meeting in Put-in-Bay or Milwaukee, because both those 

 years I was in England ; but the last meeting I was at was held 

 here — and why are these meetings interesting to me, and why 

 ought they to be interesting to a great many more people than 

 attend them? (And it is our duty to let their value be known 

 and get them to attend them). The reason is this: We are 

 working for a thing that has a clear and distinct element of 

 utility to our whole country. Xow just take the facts presented 

 here by Mr. Peabody today, the number of people that are em- 

 ployed in this business, and the excellent food which they are 

 securing by it: I thinlv that is a very valuable paper that Mr. 

 Bartlett has written. I do not know whether you all know him 

 or not. He is our state commissioner of fisheries in Illinois, and 

 he is a thorough student of whatever he takes hold of, and 1 do 

 not know of anyone whose words are more valuable than Mr. 

 Bartlett's. Is not that your experience with him Mr. Secretary ? 



Secretary: Yes, sir. 



Mr. Blatchford: I feel that we should be thankful to have 

 such a paper as that brought before us. ( Applause ) . 



Mr. John D. Whish, of Albany : Speaking of the experience 

 we have had with carp in New York state, I should say we were 

 getting considerable information right here. In our state the 

 fish is regarded as a ])ig. The line fishermen do not like liim. 

 and the net fishermen curse his ^existence. We aiv today con- 

 ducting experiments in various parts of the state, to find out 

 whether it is true or not that the carp in New York state destroy 

 game fish. The fishermen say that ho does, and we have any 

 number of letters on file in the office of the Commission, com- 

 plaining about it: there is not a day that passes but we gei an 

 application for lu'i-mission to ^wi liim out of some water: but 



