American Fisheries Society 143 



Of course there are a great many different species of chara. I do 

 not know which species you have most abundantly, but some will mat 

 down more closely and compactly than others will. Some will stand 

 up better and furnish a good nidus or breeding ground for the various 

 species of small crustaceans. The greatest difficulty that I can see as 

 to chara is the visible one that when it decays it becomes objectionable 

 in various ways. But as Mr. Lydell said in the beginning of his 

 paper, I think the chara proposition must be worked out at each in- 

 dividual and particular place. I do not think that in the lakes I know 

 about in the Mississippi Valley it is particularly objectionable. It is 

 very desirable in forming a nidus for the growth of small crustaceans 

 on which young fish can feed, and particularly desirable as furnishing 

 a safe retreat for young fishes from the older ones, if you keep your 

 breeders and small fish in the same pond. But it does not furnish food 

 to the fish themselves, as some potamogetons do, and like other species 

 that are actually food in themselves. 



Mr. Clark : In our eight or nine ponds this year the best percentage 

 of fingerlings came from the pond where we had the least chara, but, in 

 my judgment, it had plenty. The pond where it was the most matted 

 gave us the smallest percentage of fingerling fish. I was going to try 

 an experiment by raking one pond and not allowing chara to grow in 

 it to see what that would do. We got more fish from the pond where 

 there was the least growth of chara this year. 



Mr. Nevin : Why not freeze the pond this winter? 



Mr. Clark : We have chara moss in great abundance in a new pond 

 we built last year. The water was turned in this spring and the chara 

 moss was right in the soil and grew to such extent this year that before 

 we hauled it to get our fingerlings out it was a solid mass through the 

 water. The pond was hauled the 1st of July and the fish taken out; 

 and I wish you could see it now. It is covered with piles of this 

 chara moss that we have raked up. 



Mr. Lydell: After chara moss decays in the ponds it seems to have 

 a limy appearance when dry. We let the chara mat down and 

 freeze before turning the water on. You can take great handfuls 

 and rub it and it seems to be full of lime. From that particular pond 

 we did not get near the food that we did in the pond where we re- 

 moved the substance entirely. In regard to the food supply the idea 

 of freezing the ponds came to us one season when some work was 

 carried on ; and the amount of food we had next season in the pond 

 was noticeable. Professor Reighard was there and I was telling him 

 about it and he said that the reason we had it was because we 

 drew it down and let it freeze. Why do we have plenty of food in 

 the ponds we freeze and not so much in the ponds that we do not 

 freeze? It seems to be there and that is all I can tell you about it. 



