464 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK 



necessary, if there is a reasonable quantity of aquatic vege- 

 tation in it. The mere damming of a stream, and increasing 

 the body of water, promotes a larger growth of those fish 

 which are native to the brook. In the instance first men- 

 tioned, of stocking ponds with the large fresh-water Bass, a 

 freshet swept the dam away, when the fish escaped and sought 

 the larger water of the rivers below, none, even of the 

 small ones remaining to reproduce when the dam was 

 renewed. 



Trout taken from a small brook where they never grow to 

 a length exceeding eight inches, have been known to attain 

 a weight of three or four pounds when transferred to a large 

 pond or lake. 



"Ephemera," in his "Book of the Salmon," objects with 

 much reason to the term " artificial propagation ;" for after all, 

 the expression of the spawn by manipulation, and protection of 

 the young fry, are only accessories, and nature is only directed, 

 followed, or assisted, as the judgment of the fish-breeder may 

 dictate. 



Artificial Fish-Breeding. — With the object of showing 

 how easily fish can be produced by artificial culture, I have 

 obtained from Mr. W. H. Fry, the editor, and Messrs. Apple- 

 ton & Co., publishers, of New York, their consent to make 

 extracts and copy some of the explanatory cuts from a 

 work to which I have already alluded, called " A Complete 

 Treatise on Artificial Fish-breeding." In treating this subject, 

 therefore, it will be necessary to repeat, in substance or verba- 

 tim, much of the matter of a preceding chapter. Before read- 

 ing Mr. Fry's book, I had met with several brief articles on 

 the subject, one of which I clipped from a daily paper ; it 

 reads as follows : — 



** Pisciculture in New York. — At a meeting of the Farmers* 



