FISH CULTURE. 



917 



FISH CULTURE. 



IT is no longer a novel idea that fish may be cultivated in nearly all waters to such an 

 extent that there maybe established a permanent and profitable business for furnishing 

 an abundance of food of this kind. It seems to be within the power of man to multiply 

 the inhabitants of the waters almost indefinitely by artificial propagation, he being 

 subject principally to the limitations of the elements of sustenance, viz., a sufficient supply 

 of water, and of food in the water. Statistics show that the salmon fisheries alone of Great 

 Britain now aggregate in value over five million dollars annually, and that in one year the 

 product of the rivers of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales that was furnished the London market 

 was nearly four millions of dollars; also that the river Tay in Scotland yields an annual rental 

 of eighty-five thousand dollars from its salmon fisheries, and that by artificial breeding it was 

 increased to this amount within a few years from the sum of forty thousand dollars. The 

 river Tweed yields its proprietors an annual sum of one hundred thousand dollars. We also 



THE LAST STRUGGLE. 



find that the salmon fisheries in the river Moisie, in the province of Quebec, increased in seven 

 years by artificial propagation, from 75,000 to 204,000 pounds. It is but little more than 

 thirty years since the artificial propagation of fish was commenced in Europe, and now it has 

 become an established industry, France, which takes the lead, deriving an annual income of 

 nearly twenty millions of dollars from her fisheries, Russia eighteen millions, Norway 

 seventeen millions, and, as previously stated, Great Britain markets of one kind of fish alone 

 over five millions of dollars. While in this country fish culture has received but comparatively 

 little attention, it having been but a few years since the first efforts in that direction were 

 attempted, great advancement has been made during that time, in developing this art. 



Although the artificial propagation of fish might be called a new science among the 

 higher civilized nations of the earth, yet it has been long practiced by some of the heathen 

 nations, especially the Chinese and Japanese, who for thousands of years have sustained, to 

 a large extent, their dense population upon fish, a large proportion of which was artificially 

 propagated. The French have the honor of originating fish culture in the manner at present 



