FOOD FOR FISHES. 135 



slaughter-houses will be particularly welcome to trout, and can 

 be obtained at a trifling expense. You need not be very nice. 

 A piece of liver or any of those organs which are not fit for the 

 table, if hacked to pieces, will be a delicate morsel for your fish. 

 Adding to that, sheep dung, you will have a variety of feeding 

 materials which will secure the rapid growth of your fish. 



There is another point which ought to be taken into consider- 

 ation. It is, that some fishes are inimical to one another ; they 

 will not prosper if they are kept together in tlie same pond. 

 The pickerel is very voracious, and though it is a fish which in 

 certain circumstances would be very desirable, and which grows 

 very rapidly, if you introduce it into your trout pond, you are 

 sure to see your trout diminish in number rapidly, and perhaps 

 be entirely destroyed. The black bass is also a voracious fish, 

 but not so much so as the pickerel. It might be brought up in 

 the same pond with trout, provided you supplied tlie pond with 

 a sufficient amount of food, and that of a kind which shall be 

 preferable to the eggs or the young fish. Then you must take 

 care that what is not eaten up does not remain to infect the 

 water. You take good care to keep your stables clean ; you do 

 not allow your cattle to remain crowded in dirty places ; you 

 give them a fresh bed as often as is required. So should you 

 see that the bottom of your trout pond is kept nice. And as 

 you cannot do that well yourselves, it would be best to intro- 

 duce into such ponds fishes which will feed on this offal ; for 

 instance, suckers. They are the best helpmeets you can secure 

 for that purpose, for they will feed on that which is not taken 

 up by your trout. The trout feeds always upon food which is 

 suspended in the water. It does not go to the bottom and does 

 not search for food by turning up stones and looking at every 

 object which is at the bottom ; it darts at its food as it comes 

 down in the water ; and therefore, when you feed, you ought 

 to feed slowly, and you ought to feed over a large surface, so 

 that the trout shall have room to come up to their food and 

 snatch it up before it reaches the bottom. When it has gone 

 to the bottom, the trout will no longer make use of it, or only 

 to a very limited extent, but you may introduce a small kind of 

 suckers, which may themselves become an article of food for 

 the larger fish, and in tliat way secure the useful result of keep- 

 your pond clean and furnishing a proper supply of food for all. 



