NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION. 237 



obstructions which bar the passage of thousands eager and 

 waiting to ascend, as in Canada. It will be many years 

 before we can expect to reach the enviable position even now 

 enjoyed by our neighbors. 



Private enterprise has accomplished full as much, perhaps, 

 as our State authorities. Besides the fish-farms of Green, 

 Ainsworth, and Slack, which are operated for pecuniary 

 profit, we have those of Kev. William Clift in Connecticut; 

 of Livingston Stone, at Charlestown, New Hampshire ; of 

 W. H. Furman, at Maspeth, L. I. ; a hatch-house at Farm 

 River, North Branford,' Ct. ; works at Little River, Middle- 

 town, Ct., and near Saratoga, New York; Seller and 

 McConkey's preserve at Harrisburg, Pa. ; and Christie's, 

 near the same locality. There are a large number of strictly 

 private trout preserves and farms of the most expensive 

 character scattered over the country, like Massapiqua and 

 Maitlands, Long Island, and the extensive establishment of 

 John Magee, Esq., at Watkins, in Central New York. The 

 pubhc in general have become interested in the work, and 

 regard with no ordinary concern its successful progi'ess ; albeit 

 the opposition of fishermen and manufacturers has been more 

 bitter and persistent here than in Canada. Wealthy and 

 intelligent corporations, like the mill-owners on the Merri- 

 mac, the Holyoke Water-Power Company on the Connecti- 

 cut, and the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, have 

 resisted by every device the legal requirement to build fish- 

 ways over their dams. At last the Lawrence dam has been 

 made passable, and salmon ascend the Merrimac, but the 

 owners of the other two still hold out against the repeated 

 decisions of the courts against them. When these bars are 

 removed, our fish-food will increase and cheapen in the mar- 

 kets. It is not the wanton destruction of fish-life by im^ 

 proper means in season and out of season that exterminates, 

 but the dams that prevent the natural increase by excluding 

 the breeders from their spawning-grounds at the head-waters 

 of rivers. The fecundity of salmon, shad, and trout is mar- 



