REMINISCENCES OF FORTY-ONE YEARS^ WORK 

 IN FISH CULTURE 



By James Nevin 



As everything in the fish line has been threshed out time 

 and time again at our former meetings, it is hard to arrive 

 at something new to present to the Society. I therefore 

 concluded to submit this short paper of reminiscences which 

 I trust will interest you for the moment. 



Forty-one years is a long time to devote one's self con- 

 tinually and entirely to one occupation. Little did I think 

 forty years ago when I drove my superior officer, Samuel 

 Wilmot, to the depot to take the train to New York to at- 

 tend the first meeting of this Society, that in 1910 I would 

 be sent by the great State of Wisconsin, as its superin- 

 tendent of fisheries, to attend a meeting of the same 

 Society. 



From 1869 to the present time I have not lost a day in the 

 work of fish culture. My first work was with the late 

 Samuel Wilmot, of New Castle, Ontario, who was superin- 

 tendent of fish culture of the Dominion of Canada ; under 

 him I served for thirteen years. When I was fifteen years 

 of age I was employed picking salmon eggs at the munifi- 

 cent sum of 25 cents per day and, as the Irishman said, "I 

 had to ate meself at that." At that time our work was very 

 crude as compared with modern methods. In the fall of 

 the year the salmon would ascend Wilmot's Creek in large 

 numbers ; we caught them in traps and transferred them to 

 pens built in the creek, and there they were held until ready 

 to spawn. After relieving them of the eggs we returned 

 the fish to the stream and permitted them to find their way 

 back into Lake Ontario. I assisted in packing the salmon 

 eggs for which it is recorded in history the American Gov- 

 ernment paid $40 in gold per thousand. 



Every fall Mr. Wilmot went to the Detroit River to 



