44 PRACTICAL CARP CULTURE. 



going up or down hill the water level is formed on a narrow bed, and does 

 not change the weight and stress from one end of the wagon to the other, 

 as in the case of a wagon length tank, neither are the fish so liable to in- 

 jury by crowding. These boxes may be made either of tin or wood with 

 close-fitting, lifting covers, each cover to have in its center an aperture 

 six inches in diameter; this aperture to have a rim projecting below the 

 cover about two inches ; this rim at the bottom to be covered with meshed 

 wire. If the boxes are made of tin, the material should be the very best 

 XXXX quality, with the sides and ends projecting below the tin bottom 

 at least % of an inch, then in this space below the tin bottom fit in a false 

 bottom of one inch lumber and tack it to the pi ejecting sides and ends; 

 this false bottom then projects 1 ^ of an inch beyond the tin sides and ends 

 and protects it from grating and wearing out. A wagon loaded with such 

 boxes and driven rapidly will convey a great many fish without injury, 

 and with comparatively little or no slopping. If the journey is a long one 

 the water can be changed by the way as necessary. 



The sale of carp alive for table use is of great importance to the young 

 industry, and we cannot insist too strenuously upon the necessity of cul- 

 turists everywhere encouraging market men to engage in so handling 

 them. Where necessary in the introduction of it culturists will find it 

 a good investment to go to the extent even of helping the market men 

 provide tanks for the keeping of them alive, and advertising the fact 

 broadly, that they are on sale alive, and in educating the people of a com- 

 munity, through circulars and public prints, to the difference between a 

 fish that dies of suffocation and has been shipped dying and dead from 

 one end of the country to the other, and a fish that has been taken from 

 pure fresh water and immediately killed. 



All fish used for food should be killed, not allowed to die or smother 

 to death, out of their element. Mercy and humanity should lead us to 

 shorten their sufferings. Hygienic considerations should cause us to 

 draw their blood, which cannot be done in death. The blade of a common 

 pocket knife pressed in at the juncture of the head and body, severing the 

 spinal column, and pressed downward to the lower edge of the gill, will 

 both kill suddenly and draw the blood. The thought of eating a drowned 

 chicken, hog, or beef critter would be sufficient to turn the stomachs of 

 most people. To offer the same for sale would be an offense punishable 

 by law. And yet are not the cases of the drowned chicken and smoth- 

 ered fish parallels? Both die of suffocation. Custom and habit are all 

 that render the eating of the one less repulsive than the eating of the 

 other. The culture of carp, if it does not revolutionize this custom of eat- 

 inir fish that have died, will at least afford opportunity to those who desire 

 it, to have their fish taken from the water, killed, dressed, and prepared 

 for cooking before their eyes, for carp will be brought to market in tanks, 

 and fish markets will no longer be places of stale odors that you want to 

 get out of as soon as you can, but places where you will delight to linger, 

 and watch the sporting of the carp in their glass-faced tanks, where you 

 can select the one you want, and take it Ijorae with you, ready for the pot, 

 the pan, or the oven. 



