40 AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY. 



where the whitefish are indigenous. In such lakes they can and 

 should be grown to the utmost capacity of the food supply. 

 Such lakes in Michigan we are planting now as preserves from 

 which to draw a future stock of breeding fish, to furnish eggs 

 for keeping up the supply for the industrial fisheries of the 

 Great Lakes. 



There are many localities on the Great Lakes where the 

 planting of whitefish has resulted in the appearance of vast 

 schools of small fish coming in upon the inshore feeding 

 grounds, during the summer months, at points where that phe- 

 nomenon had never before occurred within the memory of the 

 oldest fishermen. That they were the planted fish is beyond 

 question, as it is not doubted by the practical fishermen and 

 others who have examined them, that these young fish are 

 identical with the Lake Erie fish, that being the source whence 

 all our ova and almost all of that used by the U. S. Commission 

 are taken. 



Second — Artificial propagation has not had a chance in point 

 of time. 



It is only within the first few years of the second decade of 

 its existence — say from 1882 or 1883 that we ever hatched and 

 planted over 15,000,000 of whitefish in any one year. The same 

 period will cover also the most extensive operations of the U. S. 

 Commission in this direction. The force of this point will be 

 appreciated when it is understood that from our present knowl- 

 edge we have no reason to expect important results from these 

 plants before the expiration of four, I tliink probably five, possi- 

 bly six years, from the time of planting. Operations during the 

 first decade were, as I have said, only experiments, and they were 

 successful beyond anything that we could in reason expect. In 

 summoning this practical art to the judgment hall, it must not 

 be overlooked that the ruin caused by wasteful and unconscion- 

 able fishing methods, which it is called upon to repair, has 

 been going on for thirty or forty years. And it is always more 

 difficult to cure than to prevent disease, whether physical, politi- 

 cal or economic. 



Again, fish-culture has not had a fair chance with us, and I 

 am informed the same is true of almost all the States, because 



