Trout Breeding. 93 



water 6 inches deep, 7,000 trout fry are quite enough to 

 feed. If the trough is 14 feet long 10,000 may be re- 

 tained. The remainder, if any, should be placed in 

 other troughs or in floating boxes in the ponds. For 

 description of these boxes see the chapter on shad. 



To feed the fish which we should have from 10,000 

 eggs take a piece of beef liver as large as a hickory nut 

 and scrape it with a sharp knife until only fibre is left ; 

 take the scrapings and pass all of it that will go through 

 a screen of about twenty wires to the inch by rubbing 

 and pressing it with a flat piece of shingle and scraping 

 it off the under side. Place this on a board and add a 

 few drops of water to make a thin paste, and then drop 

 in a little at a time, taking care not to feed more than 

 they will eat, in order not to foul the trough. It may 

 be flicked from a knife blade down the trough. My fa- 

 vorite is a "knife" made of hard wood, something like a 

 paper cutter. Watch them and see if they take it. Feed 

 carefully all down the trough. The motion of their 

 tails will now send most of the waste to the. foot of the 

 trough, yet it should be feathered as before. 



In a few days their appetites will increase greatly, 

 and it is better to feed little and often than to try to give 

 a big feed twice a day. I would not recommend any 

 person to undertake to raise young trout by artificial 

 feeding in troughs or boxes for the first three months 

 unless they can feed them every hour. The appetite of 

 the juvenile trout is as frequently intermittent as that of 

 other young animals, and requires one to stand over 

 them almost constantly. 



When I began trout culture (1868) the only book on 

 the subject was " American Fishculture," by Norris, 

 published in that year and now out of print. It con- 

 tained all that was then known, which was but little, 



