74 PRACTICAL CARP CULTURE. 



that tissue and flesh is formed, are the proteids or albumens. 



Fats and starches or carbohydrates, perform like functions in the body, 

 producing heat, energy and force. A majority of the carbohydrates belong 

 to the vegetable food, starch, sugar, gum and dextrine are the most import- 

 ant. The cell structure of plants is allied to this group, but when absorbed 

 must first be converted into sugar. 



It is from the first group that we will have chiefly to draw in the com- 

 position of food for carp, they having no animal heat to maintain. The 

 demand for carbon is confined to enough to give them vital force, and to 

 consume or burn such matter as becomes waste in the process of life. In 

 the food of man the proportion of carbohydrates to albumen is about 4 to 

 1, this amount of carbohydrates and fat are required to keep up animal heat 

 and give vital force and energy to the body. To greatly change these pro- 

 portions by increasing the albumen and decreasing the carbohydrate* 

 might give him flesh, but it would lose him his vigor. Fish require but 

 little force to move through the water, because the weight of the water 

 displaced by its body is equal to the weight of the body itself. Owing to 

 these reasons, to rapidly develop weight in the fish the albumen must be 

 in excess of the carbohydrates. The rule which has largely obtained in 

 Germany is a proportion of two pounds of the former to one pound of the 

 latter- As in the case of the food of man there is no absolute necessity of 

 adhering strictly to these proportions, as some of the carbohydrates not 

 used in producing heat and consuming waste matter are probably con- 

 verted into flesh. 



Carl Nicklas lays down the rule which has largely been adopted in 

 Germany with good results, of nine pounds of dry substance, containgfour 

 pounds of albumen and two pounds of corbohydrates, inclusive of fat, for 

 each 1 ,000 pounds of carp. 



This would allow to each pound of carp a ration of a little less than 

 one-seventh of an ounce a day. This looks very small, but it is not so. A 

 laboring man requires only one-fifth of an ounce a day to each pound of 

 weight, and in this the proportion of carbohydrate is four to one of al- 

 bumen. 



The difficulty, however, lies in the execution of the rule of Carl Xicklas. 

 We know of but one substance capable of sufficient condensation to reach 

 1be proportion -of four pounds of albumen in nine of matter, and whose 

 cost would permit its use, and that is cheap meats. These by a drying pro- 

 cess at a proper temperature, excluding the water, would leave the alhu- 

 inen in sufficient proportion. It is those dried meats converted into men! 

 M'Hir that are used under the Nicklas' rule. In Germany, too, it must be 

 a specific for carp food, as we do not find the German name, Flitter tleiHeh- 

 mehl, defined in any of the standard German encyclopedias or dictiona- 

 ries, nor is the article yet manufactured in this country, though something 

 similar is manufactured for poultry food. 



Carp, however, will eat about four timen the weight of the rations al- 

 lowed to each pound in the Nicklas rule, so that the weight of the food 

 tak'in being elastic, it gives better opportunity of reaching the proportions? 



