308 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. 



great greed. After a few days' feeding they learn to 

 come to the feeding place with the eagerness of chick- 

 ens in a barnyard. 



"At the close of last season the Messes. Riggin had 

 3,600 young terrapin on hand, which were carried safe- 

 ly through the winter. The warm days of early spring 

 caused their owners to remove them from the winter 

 quarters sooner than usual, and the cold wave proved 

 very disastrous, killing about six hundred of them, 

 which means a loss, at the present valuation, of $1,200. 

 In purchasing stock terrapin those of five inches cost 

 $13 a dozen ; six inches, $34 a dozen, and seven to nine 

 inches, $60 a dozen. They sell at from $60 to $80 a 

 dozen." 



There is not room here to record all such experi- 

 ments as are at hand, the accumulation of years, but 

 the above quotation tells about how far the culture of 

 terrapin has gone. If, under proper conditions, the 

 young can be confined, fed and protected, there may be 

 a future for terrapin culture. The Messrs. Riggin's 

 board enclosure must have had spaces for the entrance 

 of water and food, and just how these were arranged 

 to prevent the exit of young terrapins is not explained. 

 The average newspaper reporter can tell the public all 

 about the culture of fish, frogs, terrapin and other 

 things, if he happens to think of it. He makes a note 

 or two and then takes the hobbles from his imagination 

 and lets it roam. A terrapin is a better climber than 

 an oyster, and "sixteen-foot boards in the mud to the 

 depth of six feet" would secure the diamond-backs, 

 if the water did not rise the other ten feet, a point on 

 which he is silent. 



I believe it to be possible to breed this animal profi- 

 tably. The enormous and ever increasing prices that 



