1 14 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt WateY. 



themselves, then it may be made as large as the stream 

 which supplies it will admit of that is, it must not bo 

 so large that the water will get above 70 Fahr., in the 

 bottom of the pond. Depth will give coolness, or if 

 there are springs in the bottom the fish will congregate 

 there at the hottest times, while the warmer water at 

 the surface and shallow edge is favorable for the pro- 

 duction of insect life for their food. The stream above 

 can be covered with gravel as a spawning ground, and 

 the young will have a chance to escape being devoured 

 by the larger fish by keeping in the shallows. 



A pond of this kind was made at West Bloomfield, 

 N. Y., on the farm of Mr. Stephen H. Ainsworth, a 

 gentleman who was among the first to engage in trout 

 culture in New York, beginning about the year 1858. 

 He had a marshy spot of ground, formed by many 

 small springs, whose united currents in the dryest times 

 made a stream scarcely larger than a leadpencil ; and 

 digging this out he made a pond 50x100 feet, which 

 was 16 feet deep, and covered over, where he raised 

 many fish under great difficulties. In a dry season the 

 supply barely equaled the evaporation, and no water 

 passed from the pond ; and on several occasions he lost 

 his largest fish from the heat, until, in the year 1871, 

 he removed the trout and substituted black bass. Yet 

 he had accomplished enough to be an authority upon 

 trout culture in that day, and is now quoted to show 

 what can be done with little means, although I should 

 never advise any one with only his facilities to make 

 an attempt at trout raising. And the point to which 

 attention should be directed is the ratio of depth to sur- 

 face in his pond ; if he had exposed more surface to the 

 weather, or made his pond less deep, he probably would 

 never have kept a trout through the first summer. In 



