14 



PRACTICAL CARP CULTURE, 



varieties where ever the carp are cultivated, and as this is to be a practical 

 book it is with these only that we will deal. 



In the scale variety the entire body is clad with scales, which are about 

 the same size as the scales of our ordinary native fish. It is considered by 

 many to be the best of the varieties. It is slimmer, longer and more 

 graceful than either of the other varieties, and very much more prolific; 

 while it is generally conceded that it does not grow as fast as either of the 

 other varieties, yet it certainly grows fast enough to satisfy most people. 

 Hon. I. B. W. Steedman, in 1884, then Chairman of the Missouri Fish 

 Commission, in his work on carp culture in that State, says that the scale 

 carp in the State ponds at St. Louis reached a weight of eight pounds in 

 two years. Those who want more growth than that will be hard to 

 satisfy* 



The second year after the distribution of carp by the Government, 

 gome individuals, who were breeding carp for stocking purposes, were so 

 unfortunate as to have gold fish in the pond with their scale carp, and as 

 the gold fish is of the carp family, a .hybridization took place, producing 

 an inferior progeny, which were placed on the market and sold. This 

 misfortune gave other individuals, with an egotistical turn of mind, an 

 opportunity to grind their axes, which they forthwith proceeded to do, at 

 the cost of the scale variety of carp. They did not have the courage to 

 attack the individuals and hold them responsible for their misdeeds, but 

 assailed the fish, on the principle that the case would then be all their own 

 as the fish could not answer back. Their purpose was to exterminate the 

 scale carp, destroy the business of those who had pure-blooded carp, and 

 boom an accident of their own a so-called scaleless carp, which, like 

 hairless dogs and wooden legs, will not produce their like. How far short 

 of the mark they have fallen is demonstrated by the constant favor given 

 to this variety, as much certainly as to either of the others in every State 

 and Territory of the Union. Rudolph Hessel supposes the gcal carp to 



