86 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



The Clarks, father and son, met with discouragement at 

 first, but their work soon developed into a distinct fish-cul- 

 tural success. They were, however, confronted with the 

 more difficult problem of making a pecuniary success of a 

 business that was years in advance of the time. Never- 

 theless they struggled on and on with unflagging interest 

 and unfaltering faith in the future of fish culture. Father 

 and son alike were born fighters, with splendid physical 

 equipment and mental resourcefulness. Both were throb- 

 bing and pulsating dynamos of human energy, and so they 

 swept opposition aside and beat down and conquered 

 adversity. 



In 1874 they moved to Northville, Mich., where, at 

 that time, better facilities for propagating brook trout were 

 available. Two years later the father died, but the son 

 continued the business as a private enterprise until 1880. 

 From the modest and inexpensive plant of that day has 

 grown the splendid establishment now at Northville, due 

 almost wholly to the genius, persistence, grit and uncon- 

 querable energy of Frank N. Clark. 



From 1874 on into the early eighties he was employed 

 by the United States Fish Commission at certain seasons 

 of the year in hatching shad and other marine species of 

 the Atlantic coast, and the distribution of these fish took 

 him to many parts of the country and as far west as the 

 Pacific coast. There were no fine hatcheries in those pio- 

 neer days, no distributing cars with an ample crew and 

 special equipment and comfortable eating and sleeping 

 quarters. Trips to the Pacific States with live fish meant 

 almost continuous hard work in a baggage car for eight or 

 ten days. Field and hatching stations more often than 

 otherwise were in tents or temporary shacks or fishermen's 

 shanties. There were no easy places in those times, but 

 rather only those privations and days of arduous toil that 

 seem always to be associated with pioneer efforts. And 

 thus it was that Frank N. Clark acquired much of his early 



