166 FISHERIES OF THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 



THE FIRST CANADIAN FISH HATCHERY. 



Not only because he was the first Superintendent of 

 Fisheries for Lower Canada, nor yet alone because of his 

 authorship, is Mr. Nettle's personality of interest to friends 

 of the salmonidae and of the preservation of their Canadian 

 species. He will be better remembered as the father of fish 

 culture in Canada. In the year of his ap- 

 pointment as Superintendent of 

 Fisheries (1857), he established 

 and successfully operated the first 

 Canadian fish hatchery. Permis- 

 sion to incur the necessary ex- 

 pense for this work was given him 

 by Sir E. P. Tache, Prime Minis- 

 ter, in answer to written applica- 

 tion therefor. It was at first a 

 small affair. One, who saw it, 

 wrote to the writer of this 

 Sir E. P. Tache. report that it was not more than 



twice as large as a billiard table. It was situated 

 in a house near the corner of St. Ursule and St. John Streets, 

 in the city of Quebec. From this small beginning dates the 

 history of fish culture in the Dominion of Canada. Seven 

 or eight years after Mr. Nettle's first successful experiments, 

 others were made by Mr. Samuel Wilmot, who subsequently 

 became also an officer of the Fisheries Department, and in 

 1876 was made Superintendent of fish breeding. 



Mr. Nettle planted several different lots of fry in the 

 lakes and streams in the vicinity of Quebec, in 1857 and fol- 

 lowing years, his first successful experiments having been 

 made within four years of those of Dr. Theodotus Garlick, 

 the first successful hatcher of fish fry in the United States. 

 The first edition of Dr. Garlick 's book on fish culture, con- 

 taining an account of his experiments, was issued in 1857, 

 the same year as Mr. Nettle's, and from the paper, reprinted 

 in it, which Dr. Garlick read before the Cleveland Academy 



