2fi 



Trout, {Snimo Fo7itvnaJis.) 



This fish, so much prized hy the aiig-ler and epicure, in- 

 habits the ('lear mountain streams and rippling brooks, in 

 which theie is to bo ibund a limited supply of food. This 

 renders it impracticable to make them so plentiful, as to have 

 any iniluence on the food jjroduet of our waters. 



This consideration decided us not to devote any portion of 

 the appropriation to stocking streams with this beautiful 

 fish, but to devote our means to multiplying those larger, 

 more prolific and more easily raised fishes which find their 

 food in the ocean, and Avaters more abundantly supplied with 

 insects, and Crustacea, that we might accomplish the greatest 

 possible results. We have received constant applications 

 from all \)Rvts of the State for trout for streams and ponds 

 fed by cold springs, so we have made preliminary arrange- 

 ments sliould the necessary means be placed at our disposal, 

 to distribute from fifty to seventy thousand trout immedi- 

 ately. Our hatching facilities are such that we can at little 

 or no additional cost, turn out hundreds of thousand fry 

 yearly, should we he enabled to procure storage ponds for the 

 breeding trout. 



The cultivation of the lands Avhich are drained by trout 

 streams, has in our opinion tended greatly to destroy the 

 trout, almost as much as excessive and indiscriminate fish- 

 ing. The eggs of the trout are of considerable specific 

 gravity, and are deposited on the gravelly beds in the brooks 

 during the latter part of October, and in the month of No- 

 vember. They are hatched in this latitude in from forty to 

 sixty days, during Avhich time they are constantly exposed 

 to the danger of being covered up and smothered with mud 

 washed down from the newly ploughed surrounding fields, 

 nor does the danger from the Avashing of the fields end with 

 this period of the development of the egg, for after the 

 young fish has freed itself from the %gg, it is almost as help- 

 less during the absorption of the umbilical sack. We have 

 in wading trout streams in Howard Co., sunk ankle deep in 

 mud washed in from the surrounding ploughed fields. 



The washings are more fatal to the eggs of tiie Salmonida3 



