234 NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION. 



to the passage of salmon by the erection of fish-ways. Over 

 three hundred dams have been provided with fish-passes 

 throughout the New Dominion. There was, of course, much 

 opposition at first from mill-owners and fishermen at the 

 requirements and penalties of the new regime; but Cana- 

 dians are naturally tractable and law-abiding, and they not 

 only soon desisted from all interference, but, perceiving the 

 beneficial effects of protection, became ardent co-operators 

 with the Fishery officers. The results have justified the 

 most sanguine expectations. All through Canada, through- 

 out the Provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and 

 No^va Scotia, which includes Cape Breton, the most gratify- 

 ing increase in the numbers of trout and salmon is reported 

 by the district overseers. They have multiplied vastly in 

 impoverished streams, and reappeared in rivers from which 

 they had been for many years excluded. 



In the United States our piscicultural experiments have 

 been attended with gratifying results, though the process of 

 restoration has been much retarded by various causes, one 

 of which was the very high price charged by the Canadians 

 for their ova and young fry, upon which we had almost 

 wholly to depend for restocking our rivers. The cost of eggs 

 from the hatch-house at Newcastle was forty dollars per 

 thousand in gold, making the spawn of a single fish cost 

 several hundred dollars! After having submitted to this 

 exaction for several years, the energetic Fish Commissioner 

 of Maine, C. Gr. Atkins, Esq., determined to endeavor to 

 raise spawn of his own ; and having induced the States of 

 Massachusetts and Connecticut to bear equal shares of the 

 expense, commenced a series of experiments in ponds and 

 streams near Bucksport, Maine. Live salmon-breeders were 

 bought and placed in these waters, where they were care- 

 fully nurtured. After a series of partial failures from deaths 

 caused by ignorant treatment, and losses from freshets, they 

 succeeded in 1870 in obtaining 72,000 eggs. These were 

 divided among the three States pecuniarily interested, and 



