78 Tzvcnty-scvcnth Annual Meeting 



them an estimate of the number of fish taken on the stream, dur- 

 ing the season. I cannot state the number because I don't re- 

 member, but it was perfectly marvelous. The river contained 

 nothing but grayling up to 1879, when our commission began 

 stocking it with trout, and the results of that work establish 

 beyond doubt the efificacy of artificial propagation. I wish to 

 endorse what Mr. Bower said regarding the stocking of Pacific 

 slope streams with shad and its success. There is an interesting 

 thing to fish commissioners in connection with that work. Col. 

 McDonald took occasion at one time to write a monograph on 

 that work which was very interesting. He stated that the Japan 

 current sets in towards the coast of California, and because of the 

 tenip-.^rature of that stream instead of the shad only returning to 

 the rivers where planted they have distributed themselves north- 

 ward in tidal streams for hundreds of miles. They have stocked 

 th )>c waters so thoroughly, from the small plants made, that 

 Mr. Blackford when in San Francisco a few years ago sent a 

 dispatch to this society at a meeting held in New York, stating 

 that the number of shad on the market in San Francisco was 

 so great that they had to avoid glutting the market l^y regu- 

 lating the catch, and that the shad were larger in size and greater 

 in quantity and cheaper in price than in the New York market. 

 It is the same with the striped bass and neither one of these fish 

 were indigenous to the streams of the Pacific coast, but were the 

 results of planting. 



Mr. Clark: Perhaps the members of the society will think 

 that after a life of thirty years in practical fish culture, I am 

 losing faith in the work of the fish culturist, if I say nothing at 

 this time. I want to put myself right and straight on the mat- 

 ter. I am just as strong in the faith as I ever was. Speaking of 

 tlie work of transplanting shad from the Atlantic to the Pacific 

 coast, I will say the United States Fish Commission made these 

 plants — and I don't like to say that I was one of them, but I was. 

 Outside one small plant, the plants of shad carried to the Pacific 

 coast were carried there under my direction ; that is, I had charge 

 of the trips up to the time that the fish were sold in the San Fran- 

 cisco market for five cents apiece. I carried all the fish to the 

 Sacramento River except five thousand; therefore, I ought not 

 to lose faith in fish culture. 



Mr. Whitaker: Do you remember about what the aggregate 

 of the plants of shad was? 



Mr. Clark: Six hundred and fortv thousand made in three 



