138 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The curious in such matters will find the whole process very 

 fully detailed in Prof. Agassiz's work on the Salmonidcs .\ 



The salmon egg requires from seventy to eighty days before 

 the young is hatched. Our trout take a few days less, perhaps 

 seventy-two or seventy-four, according to circumstances. You 

 will find that some trout are hatched sooner than others, vary- 

 ing perhaps by a week, but over two months is always required 

 for these fishes to be hatched ; and yet there are others, such as 

 our bream, which will hatch in four days. There are other 

 fishes whose eggs require even a shorter period of incubation ; 

 so you see at once how important it is that you should make 

 different arrangements for each particular kind of fish. I do 

 not know how long the pickerel takes here. In Europe it takes 

 about three weeks ; the perch, about twelve days. I have no 

 doubt that it will be found that each of our different kinds of 

 fish has a peculiar period of incubation, so that for each, we 

 shall have to provide food for the young in due time, for they 

 are particularly greedy after they have absorbed the yolk. 



I have some young trout so far advanced that you can see 

 their eyes by the use of a magnifying lens. They are objects 

 of great interest and curiosity. I think these things ought to 

 be taught to everybody. We have introduced into our schools 

 lessons in physiology. What do they consist in ? In commit- 

 ing to memory what the text-book says upon the subject. In- 

 stead of that, why should not the teacher, since we can raise 

 fishes without number, show to the school-boys and school-girls, 

 with a small lens, which can be bought for two or three shil- 

 lings, these processes of growth ? They would then know how 

 they grow themselves, for we grow in exactly the same manner. 

 There would be a lesson in physiology worth having, because it 

 would not be words, it would be living images of the living 

 being, resembling our own form, at that age, in a manner 

 which is astonishing. That is what I would recommend, that 

 the community should grow up to an understanding of what 

 may now be expected from teachers, and demand such teachers 

 as can explain these things to every one. There is no difficulty 

 in it. The means of exhibiting the growth of fishes, for in- 

 stance, are not so expensive as the apparatus now in use in our 

 schools, and that would, as I say, be the best preparation for 

 the proper cotfduct of life, as far as the regulation of our diet 



