6 



into America; have studied, labored, and experimented 

 in all its departments : have tested all theories propound- 

 ed abroad and at home, and have had under their charge 

 in the New York state hatching house the largest and 

 most efficient establishment in the world for producing 

 actual results, and for separating fact from error. As a 

 consequence" they feel they can promise that nothing will 

 be given as an established fnct that has not been fully 

 proved by the personal experience of the writers, for 

 they are resolved to make this book trustworthy if it is 

 nothing else. 



Before entering upon the details of practical manage- 

 ment, it may not be unadvisable to take a general review 

 offish culture, and give some suggestions of universal 

 application. It has been said that an acre ot water would 

 produce as much as five acres of land, if it were tilled 

 with equal intelligence. In making such a comparison, 

 it must be borne in mind that the crop of one needs no 

 manure, requires no care during its period of growth and 

 alter it has once been planted, and that it is harvested by 

 simply taking it from the water in which it dwells. It 

 is almost wholly profit. The other must not merely be 

 planted but must be fertilized at great expense, and 

 worked and cultivated with assiduous labor of man and 

 beast, and finally when at last successfully harvested and 

 saved from destruction through disease, insects and the 

 elements, it yields but a meagre advance upon the cost 

 of time and trouble. It has been the habit to cultivate 

 the land and neglect the water, the one has been reduced 

 to private ownership and constitutes a large part of in- 

 dividual wealth, while the other is a sort of common 

 property too little appreciated to be reduced to possession 

 where this is possible, and abandoned as a 1 sort of waste to 

 yield what it may without care to the tew chance persons 



