EXPERIMENTS IN FISH-CULTUBE. 



355 



CHAPTER IH. 



FISH-CULTURE OF THIS CENTURY. 



o D E R N fish - culture is 

 indebted to only thir- 

 ty years' practice for 

 all the wonders it has 

 achieved. The early 

 part of the present cen- 

 tury was unfavorable 

 to the development of 

 industry. War en- 

 gaged the attention of 

 the civilized world. 

 Many improvements 

 known in France, Ita- 

 ly, Germany, and En- 

 gland at the commencement of their revolutions, were lost 

 to this century ; but the calm which peace restored fructified 

 genius and utilized its discoveries. 



In 1820, MM. Hivert and Pilachon, two inhabitants of the 

 Haute-Marne, fecundated eggs of trout. After hatching, they 

 took the " alevins" (the young, before the umbilical sac is ab- 

 sorbed) to the waters which they desired to stock. These 

 facts, though confirmed by M. de Montgaudry and M. Jbur- 

 dier, did not electrify the public mind, or even cause a single 

 government to put forth an effort for restocking depleted 

 waters to cheapen food. So the matter lay dormant again 

 seventeen years, when John Shaw, of Scotland, fecundated the 

 eggs of a salmon, and hatched them by artificial means, which 

 resulted in a memoir of his experiments relative to the prop- 

 agation of salmon. But this, instead of causing efforts to be- 



