IMPORTING SALMON OVA. 363 



the Conseils Generaux voted the sums to successfully operate 

 the enterprises. 



Thus the great work continued to proceed with unvary- 

 ing success until 1862, when the Minister of Agriculture and 

 Commerce published a history of the perfect success of Hu- 

 ningue, which includes seventy acres laid out into artificial 

 creeks, ponds, and hatching-houses. The statistics in this his- 

 tory were furnished by M. Courses, Ingenieur en chef des tra- 

 vaux du Rhin, to whom application should be made for vivi- 

 fied roe wherewith to stock waters in the United States. By 

 my advice, Seth Green made such order in the autumn of 

 1865, and in the spring of 1866 the eggs came to the "New 

 York Custom-house, where official and other delays detained 

 them until they died. The French government had gener- 

 ously presented Mr. Green 20,000 fecundated salmon ova, so 

 nearly hatched as to show the eyes of the alevins, carefully 

 packed them in moss, and shipped them gratuitously ! And 

 then to know that our government was so callous to the ma- 

 terial interests of the people as not only to have neglected to 

 make any effort toward reducing the prices of food-fishes, but 

 to have actually rendered the revenue officers a barrier 

 against the efforts by men of enterprise who would embark 

 their own money in it, is humiliating ! 



I humbly ask, Is it not the duty of Congress to authorize 

 the Minister of the Interior to appoint a commission for the 

 improvement of the fisheries in the United States ? Individ- 

 ual states can not, unaided by the federal government, im- 

 port either ova or young fishes of choice quality from abroad. 

 Without the seal of a United States commissioner, the col- 

 lectors of revenue have no discretion but to destroy the im- 

 portation by delay, exposure to heat or cold, or to the air. 

 Any authority given to United States consuls on the other 

 hemisphere would prove ineffectual, for there are no consuls 

 near the great piscicultural establishments ; and, in fact, since 

 the fiasco of the Acclimatization Society in the preserves of 

 Mr. Francis Francis at Twickenham, there is no establishment 



