AN EXPERIMENTAL PLANT OF INTEREST 

 TO FISH CULTURISTS 



Henry B. Ward, 



Zoological Laboratory, University of Illinois. 



It is my intention to call to your notice a new move- 

 ment in connection with the investigation of problems 

 concerning fish culture. The plan has been formulated 

 at the University of Illinois, and it is hoped that it will 

 be carried to completion very soon. The prominence of 

 the fisheries industry and fish culture, the importance 

 of general problems involved in the life and habits of 

 fish, and the growing interest in fish conservation have 

 led to a consideration of the need of determining the 

 fundamental principles connected with the home life of 

 the fish, their reproduction, growth, and adult life under 

 normal conditions. Many years of study on fish problems 

 are recorded in the publications of national and state 

 commissions, bureaus, and societies of various kinds. 

 The greater part of this activity has been connected with 

 taking and guarding the spawn, and raising the young. 

 Between the United States government, and the various 

 state organizations, many experiment stations are devot- 

 ing their entire energies to the problem of obtaining fish 

 eggs, hatching young fish, and replanting them in the 

 various waters. The amount of work that has been de- 

 voted to this problem is enormous, and the total expendi- 

 tures for such purposes, if brought together and summed 

 up, would reach a figure calculated to astound even one 

 most familiar with the question, and with the actual 

 financial expenditures of these various stations. 



Many have come to appreciate, and doubtless you in 

 this organization most of all, that these stations are doing 

 a rather one-sided work. I would not be understood as 



