60 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. 



fish over three years old would be kept. That is, a fish 

 hatched in March, 1890, would spawn in November, 

 1891, when twenty months old, and would give more or 

 less eggs, according to her growth, but should be just 

 the right size for market. A few thrifty breeders can 

 be kept with profit another year, when they will yield 

 three or four times the amount of eggs that they did a 

 twelvemonth ago ; but then they should go to market 

 the next spring and make room for younger stock, for 

 their market value is decreasing in proportion to their 

 size, as I have shown under the head of "Marketable 

 Trout." 



TAKING TROUT EGGS. 



In an old English cook-book by a Mrs. Glass, she 

 begins telling how to cook a hare, with the words: 

 "First catch your hare." The trout culturist in quest 

 of eggs may follow the sage advice of Mrs. Glass. But, 

 when the trout is caught, he must pause. Eggs are 

 desirable, but are worthless unless they are fully ripe; 

 and, if the eggs are not ripe, the mother will surely be 

 killed if they are forced from her. A male fish may 

 sometimes be ripped open and his milt teased out in 

 water, but no such Caesarian operation will yield young 

 from the female trout, and in all trout work, extending 

 over half a century, not a troutlet can say, with Mac- 

 beth, "I was from my mother's womb untimely ripped." 



The trout are either netted in ponds or streams or 

 entrapped in spawning races, which are covered grav- 

 elly runs, and will be described under the head of 

 "Ponds." As our brook, brown, rainbow and most 

 other trout spawn in the daytime, the early morning is 



