130 



Every trout breeder knows that the difficult stage with themis 

 from the time they absorb their sac to the time they get to feeding 

 well, and much of the trouble is to get them to eat. 



Some ten years ago in my perplexity to find something that they 

 would eat. I thought 1 would try a little sweet cream. Well, it float- 

 ed off like oil, and I said to myself that " any fool might have known 

 that," and set down the cream and went to thinking again. Next 

 morning I went out, and whilst standing at the head of the trough 

 thinking what I would prepare them for breakfast, I picked up the 

 cream, which had frozen over night, and dropped a little in, and to 

 my surprise it broke up into little fine particles, much like corn- 

 meal, and floated on the water, and I had the satisfaction to see the 

 little fellows grab it. Since then I have fed my fry with it for about 

 two weeks, then mixed it with liver, and finally came to all liver. I 

 think the secret of their taking to cream so kindly is that it is so 

 easily swallowed, and have often watched my young fry struggling, 

 straining and gasping, trying to swallow the smallest particles of 

 meat. 



I sell trout eggs at four dollars a thousand, and the young fish at 

 eight dollars a thousand when they absorb the sac, and add eight 

 dollars a thousand each month that I keep them. After that find I 

 that this ratio brings them, when ready for the table, to about fifty 

 cents a pound, the price at which I sell trout for the table. 



I have land-locked Atlantic and Pacific salmon, and crosses be- 

 tween the Pacific salmon and the trout, but would not recommend 

 them for pond culture. The trout will make much greater growth 

 on the same food than they will, and do much better. I sell them at 

 half the price ot trout but never get an order duplicated. 



I feed livers, melts, kidneys, and sometimes lungs of animals that 

 I pay the butchers two and a half cents a pound for, yet my fish do 

 not cost me as much pound for pound, as the beef and pork I raise. 

 The reason is that I keep my ponds well stocked with insect-food. 

 I would rather lose the use of one or two ponds at the head of the 

 stream, and devote them to insect breeding, than to have the insect 

 food fail, as by this means I not only raise my fish cheaper but get a 

 better fish than those who feed exclusively prepared food. 



Please excuse my tediousness in this description;! think fish cul- 

 ture worth a good deal of talk. 



Yours, 



A. PALMER. 



