CHAPTER VII. 



BREEDERS. 



BY far the most important feature introduced by Howietoun is 

 the production of ova from carefully selected breeders. Elsewhere, 

 before Howietoun, a few stock fish might be kept for the sake of 

 their ova, but this was the exception, not the rule ; and on the 

 Continent the opinion was very generally held that the ova from 

 trout confined in tanks was of little value ; and as no one at- 

 tempted to rear a stock of eight- or nine- year-old fish to breed 

 from, and as the conditions under which the very best ova are 

 produced were absolutely unknown, this opinion was at the time 

 well founded. It is here that Howietoun has worked a revolution 

 in fish-culture. With its magnificent supply of water, used in the 

 most economical manner possible, it has demonstrated that a flow 

 of less than 5,000,000 gallons per diem can support in rude health, 

 from fryhood to old age, a sufficient number of spawners to pro- 

 duce annually 20,000,000 ova, measuring 700 gallons, weighing 

 over 3 tons, or, when packed for transport, representing a freight 

 of 50 tons. Compare this with the amount of salmon eggs which 

 can be procured for fish-cultural purposes by netting even our best 

 rivers during the spawning season. The excellent little hatching- 

 house at Dupplin, in the Tay district, can hatch about 350,000 

 salmon ova. And last season (1885-86) it took five men twenty- 

 two days' netting the best shots in the Tay and Erne before the 

 boxes were filled. For many seasons I have superintended netting 

 the Teith, in the Forth district, to obtain ova to incubate for the 

 Fishery Board, and I never remember as many as 50,000 salmon 

 ova spawned on any one day. 



On the western coast of North America, where another member 

 of the salmon family, the 0. quinnat, or, as it is now called, the 



