132 Thirty-Second Annual Meeting 



year about one hundred of my best and earliest fish. This selec- 

 tion of choice fish should be made in the spring, when it is possi- 

 ble to do so, and all poor fish liberated. I find fish weighing 

 from two to three pounds preferable for brood purposes. During 

 the winter all my ponds are laid bare and the accumulation of 

 water plants, mosses, etc., taken out and hauled away, leaving 

 the ponds exposed to the air for from six to ten weeks. My brood 

 stock in the meantime are held in very small ponds built for nur- 

 sery ponds and well fed until ponds are filled and ready to re- 

 ceive them. Then I plant twenty-four fish, twelve pair as near 

 as can be selected, to the half acre of water. This, after experi- 

 menting, I have found to be about the right number to obtain 

 good results. I wish it understood that I have no direct way 

 to distinguish sex, except general appearances, but from the fact 

 that our ponds produce thousands of fish it is quite evident that 

 we get them stocked with a fair share of males and females. In 

 spawning the l)ass follows its natural instincts and will nest on 

 the banks of ponds in from twelve inches to three feet of water. 

 I have, however, tried several kinds of artificial nests, the most 

 successful l)eing a wlieelban-ow load of gravel placed around the 

 ponds at intervals of from forty to fifty feet, near the banks and 

 in a variety of depths of water. ]\Iany fish take to these gravel 

 piles and they seem to be acceptable to the fish and answer the 

 purpose for which they were designed. This gives each pair of 

 fish plenty of room. Being thus isolated they disturb each other 

 but little and only now and then do we see a fish that is scarred 

 from fighting. My bass commence nesting from the 8th to 15th 

 of February and now and then we have a nest late in June. 

 This lias occurred only two or three times in the past six years, 

 and usually with very poor results. 1 further find that the great 

 loss of young fish is just after hatching, say the first five or six 

 days, before the school becomes active and ju^t after the food 

 sack is absorbed. After this period, provided the water is well 

 supplied with food, the loss is small until the fish attain at least 

 two inches in length and for this reason I never transfer to nur- 

 sery or shipping ponds fish under one and one-half inches, then 

 they can take food such as chopped fish and crawfish. This food 

 is prepared in the following manner: 



If fisb, ii is skinned and all larii'e bones removed ; if crawfish. 



