14 FISH FARMING : 



you can for certainty recognise a suitable spawner on the redds, 

 and until you gain that knowledge err on the right side, and 

 only protect the eggs of trout not less than one pound. In these 

 matters common sense must guide you. Mayhap there is not 

 a pounder in the water, and ai fish of half that weight is well 

 worthy of reception on your protected redds. As a rule, the 

 early spaiwners are the: heavier fish in any Walter, so that your 

 early spawners are probably a fair sample of the available 

 stock for reproductive purposes. Nevertheless, a good brace 

 or two may turn up late, and I must leave their case to your 

 own discretion. At any rate, include the best fish available in 

 your operations, if at all possible, and do not forget that the 

 eggs from two or three brace of well-matured fish are of far 

 more value for your purpose than those of quadruple the 

 number from doubtful fish. Remember also that your four- 

 year-old fish may be ai twa-pound'er ; if so, all the batter, as 

 long as it has attained that weight in a natural manner, i.e., 

 that it is not a fish that has been artificially forced with horse- 

 flesh only on a commercial fish-farm. 



Sufficiency of eggs. This, of course, absolutely depends 

 upon the extent of the fishery to be stocked and the size of 

 the redds. A golden rule is to limit the number to the abso- 

 lute requirements of the case ; rather have too few than too 

 many. Your success depends not upon the thousands of eggs 

 spawned so much as upon the room you have on the redds 

 for the alevins (as the young fish are called when first hatched) 

 and the feed in the water for the fry (as the young fish are 

 called when they start to feed, and on to the yearling stage). 

 This latter is a most important matter, and I deal with it at 

 length later on. The best advice I can give you is to have too 

 few eggs the first year of your operations. Afterwards you 

 will better know what your redds can carry with profit. To 

 start with, a redd thirty to fifty feet long and from one 

 to three yards wide should have to provide for not more than 

 three to six well-matured spawners; and, in your early opera- 

 tions, at least, it is inadvisable to allow more on a redd of that 

 size. An average four-y ear-old fish should carry 1,000 eggs, so 



