6 • American Fisheries Society 



part of the hatchery suffered some for water during July 

 and August in 1913. However, last year, (1913) was an 

 unusually dry season and the ponds were all new and 

 did not hold water as well as they do this year. It takes 

 some time for artificially scooped out ponds to seal their 

 own bottoms so that they will hold water in good shape. 

 This is especially true of such ponds as those constructed 

 for the State Hatchery where the soil in many places was 

 sandy and the ponds were not puddled. 



No fish were lost at the hatchery during the summer 

 and fall of 1913 on account of dry weather and low 

 water. The fish were removed from a few ponds and 

 sorted and placed in other ponds where there was plenty 

 of water. What really bothered the Department was the 

 fact that the water in many of the good streams of the 

 State was so low that we did not think it advisable to 

 place fish in them, and many of the ponds for which fish 

 had been ordered were either dry or the water conditions 

 so bad that we did not think it wise to stock them. This 

 made it necessary to hold fish in the hatchery ponds that 

 would otherwise have been distributed. However, when 

 the water did come in the late fall and spring, the hatch- 

 ery had the fish to restock the waters of Kansas and, as 

 said in another place, distributed fish in the ponds and 

 streams of 102 of the 105 counties of the State. 



PLANT AND ANIMAL LIFE IN THE PONDS. 



We have stated before that the new ponds have been 

 stocked with good varieties of water plants. These 

 plants got fairly well started in some ponds last year. 

 This year they have done better and most of the ponds 

 have more or less water plants growing in them. By 

 another year we have reason to believe that all the ponds 

 will have a fairly good supply of suitable water plants. 



Fish were placed in the ponds in the spring of 1913. 

 The ponds were new and there was no more food in them 

 than could be found in newly dug cellars, except what 

 was brought in the water through the 21-inch pipe that 

 supplies the hatchery from the Ninnescah River. How- 



