How to obtain it. 245 



In order to avoid the chance of disease amongst young trout j 

 as much as possible, care should be taken to have good healthy \ 

 eggs from well-selected fish, and not only trr's, but eggs which have 

 been properly incubated in a well-appointed hatchery. Too much ' 

 stress cannot be laid upon these points, for with weakly eggs taken 

 from weakly ill-fed fish the grower has but a poor chance. There 

 is a great art in feeding breeding trout, which is only acquired by 

 long experience. To give them neither too much nor too little, 

 and to give them just the right kinds of food, at just the right 

 seasons, is a subject on which a book might be written. No book, 

 however, will ever teach the uninitiated how to do the thing. It 

 must be learned, as must many other things, by practice and a 

 thorough training at some good hsh-cultural establishment. When ' 

 the trout have safely passed the crisis which occurs when artificially 

 fed, that is a few weeks after commencing to feed, and which we 

 call getting over the " distemper," the work becomes one of con- I 

 stant attention on the part of the attendant. The feeding of so 

 many mouths, together with the cleaning of the screens and the 

 regulation of the water supplies, takes up all his time ; and it is 

 most important that nothing should happen to the water supply in 

 any way. Should it accidentally be stopped, even for a short time, 

 great loss may ensue. Too much care cannot be taken so to 

 regulate the intake that it cannot err. The choking of a screen 

 may cause a pond to run over, which should also be carefully 

 guarded against, and ought never to happen amongst a good set 

 of ponds. Should all the necessary details be duly attended to, 

 there is every prospect of a good turn out of yearlings, notwith- 

 standing the delicate nature of the creatures we are dealing with. 

 As they get older the danger of losing them rapidly decreases, and 

 by August they should be comparatively safe, having by that time 

 survived the dangers which fry are heirs to, and become yearlings. 

 It is true they are not a year old, but a great change has come 

 over them that entitles them to the name, which will be more 

 fully explained in my next chapter. 



