PRACTICAL CARP CULTURE. 125 



in with gravel. The space for gravel being four feet and ten inches thick. 

 This I think is far better than wire screen. The water runs in near the 

 end of the box. All the water that runs into the ponds must run through 

 this box. When we drained our ponds this fall we put about fifty fish in 

 the box, and I don't know how many buckets full in the small ponds. 

 When we use all that is in the box, we will draw the water off from the 

 small ponds (which are only about sixteen inches deep) and fill up the 

 box for winter use. 



We have a seine 4x4> feet to take them from the box. The lids of 

 the box open back on a frame making a place to walk when seining. I 

 intend to use these small ponds for spawning purposes in summer, and 

 as above stated in fall and winter. 



I dug a cistern last fall within a few feet of our cellar, made a hole 

 from cistern to cellar, put in an inch gas pipe, dug a sink in cellar 2>x6 

 feet, and one foot deep. Now after the sink is filled with water a stream 

 of water smaller than a straw will supply enough water for two dozen 

 fish. Now when my wife wants a mess of fish she can get them as easy 

 as getting a mess of potatoes out of the cellar. E. D. ASHWORTH. 



In April, 1887, Mr. Ashworth wrote: U I would just say that my box 

 arrangement that I described in the January number has proved a perfect 

 success. We have had fish to eat ever since last fall, simply because they 

 were where we could catch them. Also the arrangement in our cellar as 

 described in the above number has been a success, we have kept them a 

 month or more just to see if they would live, and they appeared as 

 healthy as when first put in. Their table qualities are excellent as all 

 that have eaten of them pronounce them so." 



NATIVE FISH DELAY SUCCESS. 



NORBORN, Mo., May 20, 1886. 



About four years ago I made a fish pond and wrote to the Fish Com- 

 missioner for some carp to stock it with, was informed that I could not 

 get any until fall. I was so anxious to have the fish in my pond that I 

 went down in the Missouri river bottom, where the water was drying up 

 along the railroad bottom, and caught a whole barrel of fish of all kinds 

 and sizes and put them into the pond. The last of December the same 

 year I received from Forest Park pond, St. Louis, a can containing 

 twenty-two mirror carp, which I put into the pond. I had no information 

 on the subject, until the winter of 1884-5, when I received a little book 

 from the State Fish Commissioners on carp culture. In the fall of 1885 I 

 made a new pond and drained the old pond by cutting through the bank, 

 having no drain pipe. Out of the original twenty-two carp I had sixteen 

 left. I found twenty one-year-old carp and only two young carp, and 

 several thousand little sun perch, a few small catfish and plenty of frogs 

 and crawfish. I put nine of my old fish in my new pond at the time I 

 drained the old one, the balance I put in a box made by digging a hole 

 8x12 feet square, three and a half feet deep in the ground, running spring 



