178 SEASON 1874-75. 



On the 24th April there were 6400 pure S. levencnsin in the 

 plank pond, 2400 being from rearing-box 1, and 4000 from rear- 

 ing-box 3. The S. hvenensis eggs used in experiment numbered 

 2734, and the Loch Leven eggs laid down were only 15,513, a loss 

 of only 442 eggs and fry up to the middle of May, out of 

 the 12,779 pure-bred S. kvenensis ova. The eggs and fry 

 were all counted one by one in those days, as I was anxious to 

 ascertain the best mode of treatment. Personally I have never 

 seen this work surpassed. The perfection of the impregnation is 

 due to the fact that the ova were milted in small quantities ; and 

 the success in rearing the fiy I attribute to their never having, 

 either in the egg or fish, been overcrowded. The record of the 

 burn-trout this season is not so clear in the note-book. They seem 

 to have been crowded out to a great extent, and it was not till the 

 following season I began to rear burn-trout for breeds. This 

 brings the work of the first winter to a close. And it is from this 

 beginning that I, unaided by Government and laughed at by my 

 relations, have reared the largest and most successful fish-farm 

 the world has seen. Many in this country seem to take a delight 

 in crying out that England is behind the rest of the civilised 

 nations in fish-culture ; but it is not so she is in the culture of 

 the SalmonidcB immensely before them. We have no market for 

 coarse fish, thanks to the bountiful supply on our coasts ; if we 

 had, private enterprise would do all that was required. Enterprise 

 is not hampered with the theories of crotchet-mongers, nor does 

 it appraise scientists by their readiness and skill in bowing to a 

 popular cry. In fish-culture, in the wider sense, no country has 

 done so much or acted so early for the fisheries as England. The 

 late Trawling Commission was fish-culture of the most important 

 order. Many people think fish-culture merely consists in hatching 

 fish eggs ; others, a little further advanced, realise the insufficiency 

 of this idea, but believe that if the fry hatched be reared for a few 

 months, all that can be possibly included under fish-culture is 

 accomplished. 



Fish-culture is the only means of increasing our food fishes, 

 and whatever under man's direction tends to increase the number 



