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ttationed at or near the hatchery ready at the proper moment to 

 move half a million at a single dash. I do not call into ques- 

 tion the wisdom of your Honorable Board in limiting the amount 

 of expenditures on the coming spring operations; yet in view of 

 not being able to determine the particular time at which shad 

 begin to spawn. First, it is necessary to station a force on tho- 

 sound early enough to loose nothing. Second, since we get fry 

 for our streams only at intervals when the United States men 

 cannot move them and when rapid execution is necessary, a 

 smaller force than ten men would be of little efficient service. 

 Third, this work requires character, intelligence and willing- 

 ness to undergo work full of hardship and exposure to weather, 

 and such material, ought at least to have a reasonable compensa- 

 tion; and while we placed into North Carolina waters nearly 

 four million shad at a nominal cost compared with the benefits 

 to follow, and while we will promptly carry out the designs of 

 your Honorable Board in like manner in the work immediately 

 before us, it is yet a serious matter of regret that we are obliged 

 to look calmly on at the operations of the United States work 

 and see annually ten to twenty million shad fry shipped out of 

 North Carolina to replete the water of other States, when for 

 tw r o thousand dollars economically applied every one of these 

 could be turned into the fine headwaters of our own streams. 

 No State in the world has a better showing to fill all its steams, 

 than this State has from the immense fisheries on the Albemarle 

 Found. A beginning has there been made iu permanent 

 hatching structures, by the erection of a tank of the very best 

 quality with cones for hatching the eggs. 



MOUNTAIN OK BROOK TROUT. 



After earnest entreaty on my part, it was agreedlast June 

 that I should be allowed to collect as cheaply as possible some of 

 our fine brook trout yet abundant in our most retired western 

 streams for spawn taking purposes. Accordingly I spent sever- 

 al weeks in some of the wildest mountain gorges of the State. In 

 the more settled portions they have become scarce and some of 



