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THE GENESEE FAEltfEK. 



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favorable circumstances, whicli nearly every farmer can command, and the ease with 

 which enough for seed may be transported in a few gallons of water fi-equently changed, 

 presents this branch of industry in an entirely new aspect. 



Of course young fish, like chickens, need daily and appropriate food to make them 

 grow ; and the study of the alimentary substances on which fish feed and wax fat is an 

 important part of pisci-ciilture. In all streams, ponds, lakes and seas, where fish abound 

 in a state of nature, worms, grubs, aqueous insects and plants also abound for their subsis- 

 tence. If the ocean contained no plants, and was not adapted to their growth, animals 

 could not live in its vast waste of desert waters ; for any given number of strictly 

 carnivorous animals, whether fish, insects, birds, or quadrupeds, must inevitably exter- 

 minate their kind, seeing that each individual would destroy before it was itself eaten, 

 more animals than it could possibly propagate and bring to maturity. Hence, if there 

 were no land plants there could be no land animals ; for with the extinction of all plant- 

 eating animals, flesh-eating ones would rapidly destroy each other until the last carniv- 

 orous beast died of starvation. 



It is the highest achievement of the arts and sciences of agriculture and husbandry, 

 to provide at all times a full supply of appropriate food for every cultivated plant and 

 every cultivated animal, in the most economical manner. Nature has provided for tlie 

 possible increase of all living things in a ratio truly marvellous ; and in few animals are 

 the possibilities of increase more wonderful than in the millions of eggs develoj^ed from 

 the blood of a few fish which one may propagate. Young fish grow finely when they 

 can get the eggs of toads, frogs, and other amphibials, to feed upon. All such animals, 

 like young oysters, need a highly nitrogenous aliment. Fish may be reared on peas, 

 beans, wheat, and most other seeds. Whatever will feed birds, will nourish fish ; and 

 the latter yield the richest known manure in the shape of guano. Instead of having 

 sea-birds furnish farmers with guano derived from fish, let farmers themselves rear fish 

 to be consumed by man at a profit to the producer, and then let the fertilizing atoms 

 contained in the fish and extracted from the bottom offish ponds, creeks, and rivers, ^^e 

 converted into guano (nightsoil) to enrich cultivated fields. Both land and water may 

 be made to yield f(jur-fold more food and wealth for the human family than they now 

 do according to the population of the most industrious and civilized nations, provided 

 the laws of nature are properly studied and obeyed. We are not prepared just now to 

 suggest the best pastures for fish, for experiments have ye-t to decide the value of difl"erent 

 articles of piscatory diet. Their food may be reared in water, or hard by where fish are 

 grown, that they may be fed as steers, dairy cows, pigs, calves, and horses are often 

 kept by stall-feeding. But without resort to artificial pasture of any kind, millions of 

 valuable fish may be reared in the United States where the native stock is nearly or 

 quite exhausted. On the head waters of the Hudson, Connecticut, Susquehanna, Alle- 

 gany, Potomac and Savannah rivers, the breeding of shad, trout, and white fish, may be 

 prosecuted on a magnificent scale. 0-ne of the earliestiiand most successful experiments 

 made in Europe, was conducted after this fashion : — The hull of an old river craft was 

 sunk in a clear, running stream, and its bottom covered a few inches with sand and 

 gravel as a suitable bed for the spawn of fish. Several holes were cut at both ends of 

 the boat or vessel so that water ran through and over the bed of sand and gravel. Upon 

 this the spawn and sperm, fully matured in the bodies of both sexes, were gently 

 expressed and deposited, imitating nature, for the ova of the female are impregnated 

 after they reach the gTound. After the ova are hatched in the vessel, one can feed the 

 young fry and change the water without allowing any of the fish to escape. In this 

 simple nursery all depredators may be kept at a proper distance, and almost every egg 

 fecundated and made to produce its fish. 



As the living embryo in a new laid egg, or in an egg about to be laid by a bird, lias 

 a vitality independent of its parents, so the matured eggs of a female fish and the 



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