SELECTION OF TWO-YEAR-OLDS. 73 



times a day, and this is continued until September, when the 

 morning and evening feeding is dropped. By October the fish are 

 fed only four times a day, between 10 A.M. and 3 P.M., and during 

 winter the feeding-time is still further reduced to between 11 A. M. 

 and 2.30 P.M. But the amount of food consumed increases 

 regularly. One hundred thousand ten-month-old trout would 

 consume between two and three horses a week. In March the 

 two-year-olds for the following season are selected, and transplanted 

 to the two-year-old ponds Nos. 9, 13, 14, and 16. The few thousand 

 yearlings remaining for the season's delivery are removed, if 

 possible, into one of the 130-feet plank ponds, so that the whole 

 of the 100-feet ponds can be run dry and cleaned. The plugs and 

 the iron pipes which pass below the 100-feets being removed, any 

 remaining fish are caught in the wells at the foot of the works. 

 If possible, the ponds should remain empty, exposed to the air and 

 the sun, for at least a fortnight, and the fry do better if they 

 remain full for another fortnight. 



THE TWO-YEAR-OLDS 



require to be carefully selected, as it is very important, in growing 

 large numbers of fish together, to start them as equal in size as 

 possible and with trout there is always a small proportion of fish 

 of inferior size, although, I believe, at Howietoun this proportion 

 is much smaller than it would be in Nature. 



The feeding of two-year-olds is very simple. Chopped horse- 

 flesh is merely scattered by hand out of a pail on the surface of the 

 water. As the two-year-old ponds are from 8 to 12 feet deep, 

 the fish have plenty of time to pick up every particle before it 

 reaches the bottom, and so knowing do they become that the shoal 

 of trout raise a regular wave on the water so soon as their feeder 

 comes in sight. A man is better than a woman for feeding two- 

 year-olds, because it requires considerable strength to scatter the 

 food over a large pond, and if he walks round while he scatters, 

 there is little danger of his feeding too fast. 



The quantity of food required is also large. Three pailfuls of 

 chopped horse are given daily to pond 15, which yields from 20,000 



