ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND FACTS FOR THE PEOPLE. 57$ 



Build your ponds according to the 

 amount of water you have. If you have 

 but little, build small. The water should 

 be changed every twenty-four or forty- 

 eight hours, and the oftener it is changed 

 the better. Your trough should be so 

 arranged that the water will run in at 

 about twelve feet per minute. The water 

 should be filtered by running through 

 gravel or cloth screens, to prevent the 

 sediment from reaching the spawn. Mr. 

 Seth Green, the noted fish culturist, states 

 that he runs about one inch of water 

 over his spawn, and if any sediment gets 

 on them, that it will surely kill them. 

 Remove all sediment with the bearded 

 end of a quill by agitating the water, 

 without touching the spawn. 



Large troughs with but little water get 

 too warm in summer and too cold in 

 winter for trout to do well. It is detri- 

 mental to have any other fish with trout. 

 Any kind of fish or fish spawn is good 

 for feed. The young should be fed twice 

 a day very slowly — if fed fast, the feed 

 sinks and befouls the trough, and the 

 trout sicken and die. If fed regularly, 

 and the trough kept clean, with a good 

 change of water, and not kept too thick, 

 they will live and do well. If neglected, 

 they will surely die. 



The sun, sediment, rats, mice, snails, 

 crawfish, and many water insects are 

 death to spawn. 



Mr. Green's troughs are twenty-five 

 feet long and fifteen inches wide. The 

 water that feeds each trough goes through 

 a half-inch hole with a three-inch head. 

 Use fine gravel that has no iron rust in it. 

 His troughs are three inches higher at the 

 head. 



Trout hatch the soonest in warm water. 

 The average temperature of the water is 

 forty-five degrees, and the fish hatch in 

 seventy days. Every degree colder or 

 warmer will make a difference of six days 

 in hatching. The sack of their bellies 

 sustain them from forty to forty-five days 

 after hatching; then they need food. 

 Beef liver, chopped with a razor or sharp 

 knife, nearly to the consistency of blood, 

 is good. If you have small streams or 

 shallow water near the bed of your pond, 

 put a few trout in a place in the stream 

 and pond, and they will take care of 

 themselves better than you can. The 

 object of distributing them is that they 



will get more food. All old streams and 

 ponds have plenty of food for small trout 

 and large, which you will find by examin- 

 ing the moss,- sticks and stones in your 

 ponds and streams, as they are full of 

 water insects. 



Trout begin to spawn the first of No- 

 vember, and cease the first of March. 

 Mr. Green furnishes young trout, one 

 inch long, for forty dollars per thousand, 

 delivered at your nearest railway statioa 

 or express office. They ran be carried in 

 barrels or cans any distance when small, 

 and during the months of January, 

 February, and March. Impregnated 

 spawn can be had from November 1st to 

 March 1st, for ten dollars per thousand, 

 shipped in moss. The moss box is placed 

 in a tin pail, filled with saw-dust, so that 

 the spawn will not feel the change of 

 heat and cold. They cannot in safety be 

 shipped in warm weather. 



Pick the moss carefully off the top of 

 the spawn. Then put the box in a pan of 

 water and turn it nearly bottom-side up, 

 and pick the moss out very carefully. The 

 spawn will sink to the bottom, and you 

 can pick the moss out of the pan. If 

 there is a little left in it will do no harm. 

 Then pour the spawn in your hatching- 

 trough, by holding the edge of your pan 

 under water, and place them without, 

 touching the spawn, by agitating the 

 water with the bearded end of a feather. 

 The dead spawn will turn a milk-white 

 color, and should be picked out. 



A few hints to those making it a busi- 

 ness may not be out of place here. In 

 selecting a site for fish ponds be very 

 sure that the supply of water is unfailing. 

 The strength of a chain is always meas- 

 ured by the strength of its weakest link. 

 If a spring should give twenty inches of 

 water most of the time, but only one inch 

 in a very dry season, then the flow of 

 that spring is one inch. It has more 

 than once happened that a would-be fish 

 breeder has found his ponds without wa- 

 ter, and his beautiful spring dried up. 

 Then, too, it would be exceedingly con- 

 venient, though not absolutely necessary, 

 to have such a fall that every pond could' 

 be drained, and the pond should be so 

 situated that a rising and overflow of the 

 stream should not overflow the ponds. 

 This cannot be arranged very well it the: 

 ponds are made as has been often re- 



