1900 J FISHERIES DEPARTMENT. 13 



announced policy of the Department to lease certain of these lakes as soon as 

 arrangements now under consideration are matured. But if these objections did 

 not obtain, they are so difficult of access and so far from railway centres, that the 

 primitive means which would have to be adopted, both for capture and trans- 

 portation, would be so tedious and expensive, and accompanied by such loss as to 

 make it impossible to enter upon the work as extensively as is required or desired. 

 The Department, therefore, early recognized that, in order to carry on the work 

 on anything like an extensive scale, or in a successful manner, a plan affording 

 greater facilities must be adopted, and that the fish must also if possible be 

 obtained from waters where a minimum of opposition would be raised to their 

 removal. We have therefore been anxious to discover such waters, and, after 

 much correspondence and enquiry, believe we have been able to locate waters 

 where the fish may be obtained in unlimited quantities, near railway points, and 

 without danger of exciting any opposition whatever to their being taken. A 

 quotation from a letter received on the subject in regard to one locality may here 

 be given : " There is a bay with a shale or small stone bottom covering WO acres 

 " or more, which 1 have seen alive in June and July with small bass. In these 

 " waters the bass spawn, and are so plentiful in the spring that they can be caught 

 " by hand in the shallow parts. The water ranges from two to four feet deep at 



" most. The fish vary in size from four to eight incites Have seen 



" water boil at times with bass of sizes mentioned, and during my several years' 

 " fishing in those parts, I have always seen plenty of small bass. . . . There 

 " is no way I knoiv of getting them only by drawing a seine .... What 

 " would be taken would never be missed." 



To insure the most satisfactory results, it is necessary to remove the fish in 

 the spring before the warm weather sets in, or in the fall before they have again 

 gone into deep water for the winter, and therefore the department is completing 

 arrangements to enable it to enter vigorously upon the work before the fish have 

 spawned. A tender has been received for supplying 10,000 adult bass at 10 cents 

 per head, free on board of car, but the department will itself undertake the work 

 if it is found to be the most convenient and economical method. There is no 

 reason, in the opinion of the undersigned, why our waters should not again — and 

 it is hoped at an early day — teem with desirable fish. All that is required is a 

 permanent stream or body of water, and that the public afford us their loyal 

 support in the enforcement of the law. Nor does the undersigned believe that 

 only waters that have become entirely depleted should be renewed, but he is of 

 opinion that great advantage would result from a supply being placed as soon as 

 possible in waters where bass are already to be found in considerable numbers, 

 for it is believed the importation of new blood into these waters will improve the 

 quantity and quality of those already therein. 



Transportation of Live Fish. 



Finding that bass could be obtained in such quantities as before ment'oned, 

 the necessity of having greater facilities for transportation than those heretofore 

 adopted became evident. To that end, therefore, the undersigned put himself in 

 correspondence, and has had several interviews with the representatives of rail- 

 way companies, with a view to their co-operation in the great work to be under- 

 taken, by fitting up, equipping and placing at the disposal of the Province a car 

 for the purpose ; and the proposition is now receiving their consideration. It has 

 not been suggested that in the first instance a car on anything like so elaborate a 

 scale as are the State fish cars should be furnished, but merely the adaptation of an 

 ordinary passenger coach by means of water tanks and ice boxes, so that it would 

 be possible to transport several hundred adult fish at one time. It has been demon- 

 strated beyond a doubt that bass can be carried almost any distance without 



