PRACTICAL CARP CULTURE. 73 



become extinct. An army of carp eating pond lillies, water grasses, etc., 

 would quickly clean the pond out. We have seen in a three-acre pond a 

 floating island about 30 feet square composed almost entirely of pond lil- 

 lies. An examination of them showed the roots to be almost clean of dirt, 

 with some of them broken off, not bitten off. What caused them to float? 

 They came from an end of the pond where the carp fed a good deal of the 

 time, and in their search for food at their roots, worms, larvae, &c., they 

 gradually undermined them, the interlacing of roots holding them together 

 until a body large enough to be affected by the wind, the leaves acting as 

 sails, broke loose and floated over the pond. 



Again, the digestive organs, alone, of plant-eating animals, average 

 from 15 to 20 per centum of the entire weight of the body, While in flesh- 

 eating animals the digestive organs, alone, average only from 5 to 6 per 

 centum. In the carp the entire entrails and internal organs of the body 

 will not reach over 5 per centum of its entire weight. This fact of itself 

 is sufficient to determine that they are not vegetarians. 



The natural food of the carp, universally found in their stomachs, 

 where not artificially fed, consists of maggots, worms, snails, insects, lar- 

 vae, bugs and beetles. So far as analysis and experiment demonstrate, 

 these contain an average of about 20 to 1 of nutritive matter. Taking this 

 natural food as a base of operations, and considering in connection with it, 

 that carp are of the cold blooded order, and have no bodily heat to main- 

 tain, and by comparison with the hog which they most resemble in appe- 

 tite and rapidity of growth ; we may any of us formulate a reasonable 

 rule for the composition of the food to be given them that will result in the 

 least waste of material and the greatest increase of fish flesh. 



That the natural food is the best that can be supplied the carp, has been 

 demonstrated, in nearly every State in the Union, by the marvelous growth 

 they have made in ponds where there were but few carp and an abundance 

 of natural food. In Northern Ohio they have reached a weight of six 

 pounds in 18 months. In Texas a weight of over 20 pounds in four years, 

 full accounts of which were published in "American Carp Culture-" We 

 must endeavor then in the artificial food to approximate the elements of 

 the natural. The growth of the carp will then be in ratio to the amount 

 of food taken, digested and assimilated. 



The nutritious matter in the natural food is in the proportion pt 20 to 

 1, nutritious matter, or substances are found in 



1. Albumen, or proteids. 



2. Fats, or oils. 



8. Starches, or carbohydrates. 



To the first group belong some of the most important food stuffs, and 

 all of them contain nitrogen and are therefore sometimes termed u nitro- 

 geiious constituents. Of this group adapted to fish food are, meat of any 

 kind of animals, containing on an average' about 19 per cent, of albumen ; 

 peas and beans an average of about 25 per cent; grains and, flour and 

 meals about 9 per cent., potatoes about 2 per cent. The chief constituents 

 of the vital organs, the muscles and the blood, and it is through the blood 



