134 Tiventy-ninth Annual Meeting 



punipkinseeds, as we call them, and in 15 months I caught come 

 of those bass and they weighed a pound apiece. 



Mr. Ravenel: That is not surprising, the large mouth bass, 

 are rapid growers. 



The President: How much do you say? 



Mr. Thompson: They weighed a good solid pound. 



Mr. Ravenel: In Texas the bass spawn in the fore part of 

 March, and we commence the distribution in April, and before 

 we get through distributing in June we are delivering fish that 

 are 3 or 4 inches long. 



Mr. Hurlburt: Two years ago, Mr. Ravenel, you sent me a 

 can of 500 small mouth black bass and they were all sizes. 



Mr. Ravenel: That is so. 



The President: I will inquire of I*vlr. Ravenel if he has had 

 as much success in propagating the small mouth l)ass as the 

 large mouth? 



Mr. Ravenel: The big mouth bass are better adapted to 

 pond culture than the small mouth. The Potomac River, from 

 which we get our water supply, is one of the best bass streams 

 in the United States, and in the last 10 years we have introduced 

 the ^arge mouths so that they range r i'or about 60 miles of the 

 river. 



The Secretary: I hardly agree with Mr. Ravenel, when he 

 says that the big mouth bass are better adapted to pond culture 

 than the small mouth bass. 



Mr. Ravenel : I should have qualified that as to the Great- 

 Lake section. 



The Secretary : We have about 300 stock fish in our breed- 

 ing ponds and each pond is provided with gravel nests. At the 

 first spawning there were 50 nests occupied ; out of those 50, 

 44 were good and the others were worthless. From those 44 

 nests we took something over a quarter of a million fry. Here- 

 tofore we have fed the fish on liver and they didn't take very 

 kindly to it, the result being that at spawning time the fish were 

 ravenous and hungry, and the others fought and drove them 

 away and destroyed the eggs, and even where they spawned un- 



