230 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



masses. They have done much in restocking our lakes and rivers, and in intro 

 ducing new species of fish, and we are looking for great results. I have no doubt 

 that in the near future the Legislator of the past will bewail himself for the meager- 

 nes of the appropriations made for the Fish Commissioners, and especially of 

 Indiana. But, sir, I am looking to a different source than the restocking of our 

 lakes and streams for the great increase of food fishes, and that source is the pri- 

 vate pond. Private enterprise has brought about all the great results that we have 

 achieved in regard to clothing and food in this country when properly aided by the 

 Government, and I am looking to the National and State Fish Commissioners more 

 in the light of an aid to private enterprise than to any great results from them di- 

 rect. With our innumerable springs and rivulets, besides the large proportion of 

 clay land in which ponds may be easily made and filled with water by the rains 

 and wind pump, springs turned into excavated ponds, and our rivulets dammed 

 and swarming wilh innumerable carp, then, sir, we shall have fish for breakfast,, 

 dinner and supper at our choosing; and the farmers, who have acres of quag and 

 marsh land, which have never produced enough to pay the taxes on them, will find 

 them the most productive portion of their farm, yielding, as they will, a larger per 

 cent, on the capital and labor invested than any tilled land. While we may make 

 many mistakes, and meet with many failures, what improvements have we to-day 

 that have not come up through mistakes and failures. The wooden moldboard 

 plow, as compared with the hardened and polished steel plow of to-day, was a fail- 

 ure, but it filled its place in the past ; and that practical experience which we shall 

 receive in the next few years in fish culture will be a lesson that we could receive 

 in no other way. Then let us not hesitate for fear of failure, but drive on, andsuc- 

 cess will be ours. Besides the pecuniary benefit derived from these ponds, the pleas- 

 ure and recreation afforded by them will be worth untold millions to us as a people. 

 My wife and children never tire in calling up the finny tribe and feeding them, 

 and the husband is often found lingering about the ponds. Neighbors by the score 

 yea, by the hundreds, have visited my ponds, and the general declaration is that 

 " I am going to make a pond," or "Oh that I had a place to make a pond." 



We do not raise hogs, sheep and cattle without great labor and care ; neither 

 shall we raise carp without labor, but that labor is very light compared with the 

 labor that it takes to raise hogs, sheep and cattle. The very season of the year 

 when they need the most care and food, our carp are hibernating in the mud at the 

 bottom of our ponds, without either food or care. 



To make carp raising profitable we should feed with as much system as we feed 

 our domestic animals. I look upon a carp as I do a pig, or any other domestic 

 animal, in that the fiesh will be affected by the nature of the food. The carp 

 raised without feeding may be equal to the one that is fed, but we can only raise, 

 to a limited extent, without feeding, for we must limit the number, where we do 

 not feed, to the size of our pond. 



WHAT FISH SHALL WE RAISE? 



What fish we shall raise will be determined from the stand point of profit, tak- 

 ing into consideration the edible quality of the fish, as well as its period of growth. 

 We have some fine fish, natives of the lakes and rivers of this country. The bass 



