being more perfectly adapted to the Yaclkin, Catawba, Broad 

 and Green, over 300,000 have been placed in those waters. 

 Without laws prohibiting permanent obstructions and a whole- 

 sale destruction of the fish south of our State line, it will be 

 necessary to discontinue the release of more fish in those streams. 



It would not only be foolish to pursue our operations there, 

 but unfair and unjust. It would be a repetition of the abuses 

 on the Connecticut river where money was expended by New 

 Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts and the shad increased 

 seven times their former number, while the people of Connecti- 

 cut on the lower waters reaped almost the entire benefits. In 

 the laws of Virginia they will make an exception of such streams 

 as run into our State unless we remove the obstructions. They 

 will place no fish into streams running into this State unless ob- 

 structions to the passage of fish are removed and fish-ways or 

 other means of crossing dams provided. So I am informed by 

 the Fish Commissioner of that State. 



If proper laws are not enacted by our Legislature toward the 

 protection of fish it will not and shall not be the fault of the 

 Board under which I act. In my recent report to the General 

 Assembly which received the unanimous approval and recom- 

 mendation of the Board, I entered into the details and offered 

 such recommendations as seem to embrace all the requirements 

 to subserve the wants of the people of the State in this interest. 

 The operations of the last two years have demonstrated the en- 

 tire practicability of filling to its utmost capacity every stream 

 in the State. One per cent, of the salmon released in this State 

 are worth more than our entire out-lay has been, and one per 

 cent, of the shad released at twenty-five cents apiece would bring 

 over nine thousand dollars. From one end of this State to the 

 other streams cover its face like a net-work, evincing the fact 

 that the fishing interests can be made one of our greatest in- 

 dustries. Successful demonstration proves that one acre of 

 water in New]York State is more productive than several acres of 

 laad, hence any future policy in our governmental affairs which 

 fails to take hold of our natural advantages and restore their 



