18 REPORT OF ONTARIO GAME No. 52 



to dispense altogether with the natural processes of reproduction. The 

 success which has attended fish hatchery operations on a large scale 

 has not tended, however, towards making this latter theory acceptable 

 to the majority of fish-culturists. It has on the the contrary, had the 

 effect of creating a belief among them that the results obtained by 

 natural production were so insignificant that the process could safely 

 be neglected provided there existed sufficient hatchery equipment to deal 

 with the number of eggs obtainable. As a natural outcome of this 

 theory, not only has the close season for fish during the breeding season 

 been abandoned over a considerable number of the fishing areas in which 

 great quantities of artificially hatched fry can be planted, but there 

 has developed, also, a school of ardent fish-culturi'sts which claims that 

 inasmuch as the hatchery plants must be supplied with eggs to enable 

 them successfully to carry out their proper functions, the breeding 

 season of the fish is obviously the period in which, at all costs, fishery 

 operations should be most vigorously conducted, the commercial net 

 fishermen being instructed in the art of taking and mixing spawn, 

 licensed only on condition that they do so, and paid by the hatcheries a 

 small fixed sum for a given quantity of eggs, the fate of the parent 

 fish being deemed limmaterial in the light of the immense increase 

 which it will liave contributed to assure. Further, in the opinion of this 

 school, even supposing close seasons to be deemed absolutely' necessary, 

 the logical time for such would be during those periods when the fish 

 can be most readil}^ caught, but when they are not laden with ripe 

 spawn, such as the spring migration of the whitefish, referred to in a 

 previous section. AVhatever may be the merits of this contention it is 

 quite plain that it must depend for its execution on the existence of 

 an ample hatchery plant. 



It can be shown that in those Canadian waters where practically 

 no planting of fry has been effected, such as the fisheries of Lake 

 Superior, data of which have alread^^ been given, in spite of a close 

 season being in force during the alleged breeding season of the white- 

 fish, the catch has steadily diminished, and the same can be shown in 

 regard to Canadian waters, such as Lake Ontario, in which planting 

 of fry has occurred on a moderate scale. This, however, can hardly be 

 deemed proof that the close season is inefficacious, for a similar state 

 of affairs can be disclosed in certain of the American fishing areas, 

 where no close season is in effect and artificial propagation is in full 

 blast on a gigantic scale. It would seem, on the contrary, to suggest 

 that, as evidently the annual catch is still in excess of the available in- 

 crease, it cannot but be exceedingly unwise to neglect any possible 

 means of assisting that increase, or, in otlier words, that the close season 

 should be maintained until at least it has been demonstrated success- 

 fully over a period of years that it can safely be dispensed with. Most 

 particularly so must this be the case with Ontario, who herself possesses 

 no hatchery equipment at all, but is entirely dependent on the Dominion 



