198 Modern Pishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. 



planted there by the United States Fish Commission, 

 year after year, and now they are not only plenty where 

 they were planted, in the Sacramento River, but have 

 strayed up the coast and stocked rivers of their own 

 volition, as far up as Puget Sound. Not only that, but 

 shad have increased in size. Mr. Blackford reports see- 

 ing shad in San Francisco markets which weighed 16 

 pounds. A few years ago a 6-pound shad in New York 

 markets was considered large, and an 8-pounder a 

 "monster." I have seen several Hudson River shad 

 weighing 10 pounds during the past few years, and this 

 was not an uncommon weight a century ago. 



SHAD FRY ACROSS THE ATLANTIC. 



Germany wanted shad fry, and as adult shad cannot 

 be handled without killing them, Prof. Baird detailed 

 me to take them over, with Mr. Aaron Anderson as an 

 assistant. We took 100,000 newly hatched fry from 

 Holyoke, Mass., on August 4, 1874, and sailed on the 

 North German Lloyd steamer Donau the next day. We 

 had ten cans and 10,000 gallons of Croton water in the 

 steamer's cemented water tanks below. We stood six- 

 hour watches and worked hard, through all the horrors 

 of sea-sickness, but we didn't let a little thing like that 

 interfere with duty. The illness only lasted three days, 

 and the fry were doing well. We then siphoned out the 

 dead, which were 200, not more than would have died 

 in the river. Every three hours each can was one-third 

 emptied and refilled with fresh water. On the Qth the 

 fish had absorbed their sacs, and, by their lively dart- 

 ings, were looking for food, and as what they fed upon 

 must necessarily be small we washed pieces of fresh 



