1879.] 



would be equal to that of the whole United 

 States at the present day. 



Amount Consumed at Home. 



The entire production of seed leaf in the 

 country is about 130,000 cases, of which we 

 supply at least 30 per cent. Of the above, 

 about 4-2,000 cases are sent to foreign 

 countries, and 88,000 cases are consumed at 

 home. As was to be expected, this large 

 production of tobacco in Lancaster county haa 

 stimulated the growth of the segar manufac- 

 turing industry to an unusual degree. A large 

 number of establishments are in operation and 

 their production was, for the fiscal year end- 

 ing June 30th. 1878, 103,204,300 segars. No 

 less tlian 6,500 cases, or nearly 3,000,000 of 

 pounds of the weed, were used in making 

 them. The revenue derived from this source 

 alone by the Government, in this, the Ninth 

 Internal Revenue District, during the last 

 year, was S(510,585.80, the amount from all 

 other sources being only one-third of that sum. 

 Lancaster County's Segar Industry. 



The following are the figures showing the 

 Internal Revenue collections in the Ninlli 

 District of Tennsylvania, for the fiscal year 

 ending June 30th, 1879. Particular attentior. 

 is directed to the item of segars, as showing 

 the immense proportion of that industry in 

 this district : 



Whisky « 93,527 94 



Tobacco and Segars .... 729,'.;71 53 



Beer 24,094 48 



Banks 18,257 97 



Penalties 5,1 13 03 



Total collections .... 8870,264 95 



Tax collected on 116,811,000 cigars 

 amounting to .... $700,866 00 



Excess of collections over last fiscal 



year ? 66,458 02 



Is the Crop Exhausting .' 



There has been much said about the ex- 

 hausting nature of the crop, but opinions are 

 pretty evenly divided on the point. Little 

 danger, I think, need be apprehended from 

 this source. The average put out by each 

 farmer is generally small, and they understand 

 tlie character of their soil too well to let it run 

 down through tobacco planting. If it shall 

 be found, after a series of years, that their 

 lands are becoming less productive, they will 

 assuredly grow less tobacco or buy more ferti- 

 lizers. It has made a rich county still richer, 

 and I do not believe the influx of wealth from 

 this source will soon come to an end, any 

 more than will her overwhelming Republican 

 majorities.— i*'. E. Diffenderffer, in Progress. 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



119 



THE BLACK BASS. 



Practical Hints on Fish and Fishing. 



The black bass is called by plenty of hard 

 names by the scientists. Ccntrarchus fasciatus, 

 Gristes nigricans, Microptcriis nigricans, are 

 some of them, while the common people call 

 him more familiary, but no less variously. 

 Black Bass, Green Bass, Oswego Bass, Swago, 

 Yellow Perch, and.Black Perch, and in some 

 parts of tlie countiy even Trout ; yet he has 

 lived through it all, and is a Black Bass still ; 

 fish most desirable on hook or plate, and of 

 deserved and growing popularity. 



When the salmon had been caught and 

 driven from almost their last river in the 

 Eastern States, and the trout had become 

 scarce in all but the least accessible ponds and 

 streams of the wilderness, the black bass 

 awoke one spring from his deep water hiber- 

 nation to find himself famous. Heretofore 

 he had been thought a good fellow enough, 

 worth fishing for when the noble Kalmonides 

 were not to be had, and when caught, well 

 worth dressing and bringing to the table, 

 where he was held to be at his best. Now, he 

 ranks 



Second Only to the Salmon and Larger Trout 

 for game qualities; and column after column 

 of sporting journals, and page on page of 

 sporting books, are devoted to his praise, de- 

 scription, habits, and the methods of his cap- 



ture. It may be stated, as a measure of the 

 growth of his popularity, that Frank Forrest- 

 er, in his "Fish and Fishing," published 

 twenty-five or thirty years ago, gives him less 

 than two pages and a faulty portrait ; while 

 Hallock devotes to him sixteen pages of his 

 Sportsman'' s Gazetteer, published in 1877, 

 wherein he gives a careful comparative de- 

 scription o( the two varieties, Micropterus 

 salmoides and Micropterus nigricans. 



These fish are also favorites with fish cul- 

 turists, because of the rapidity with which 

 they multiply in almost all waters when intro- 

 duced, which is done, not by planting the fry, 

 as with most other artificially propagated 

 fishes, but by letting loose in the pond or 

 stream to be stocked some adults abundantly 

 able to take care of themselves, and at once 

 ready to give birth to and assume the care of 

 a numerous progeny. The spiny dorsal fin is 

 a defensive armor which Insures the young 

 fish, for the most part, fi-om the attacks of 

 other predatory fishes, and they soon grow to 

 an ability to hold their own with"any,in more 

 than mere defense. The rapid increase of the 

 black bass in many ponds where they have 

 been introduced, especially where small, soft- 

 finned fishes abound, is almost marvelous. I 

 cannot find or give a better 



Description of Black Bass 

 than that furnished by Thompson in the Nat- 

 ural History Department of his "Vermont:" 

 "Form, somewhat elliptical, a little convex 

 on the sides and pointed forwards. Color, 

 dark greenish above, lighter and grayish white 

 beneath; sides of the head fine, light green. 

 Scales firm, moderate on the sides and oper- 

 culum. Properculum, with its upper limb 

 nearly vertical and nearly at right angles with 

 the lower, without spines or serratures. In- 

 teroperculum and suboperculum scaly on the 

 upper side and smooth below. Operculum tri- 

 angular, with a membranous prolongation 

 posteriorly, and the bony part terminating 

 posteriorly in two thin lobes, with a deep 

 notch between them, the lower lobe, which is 

 largest, ending in several short spines. Teeth 

 small, sharp and numerous in both jaws, on 

 the lower anterior edges of the palatine 

 and on the vomer, with a small cluster near 

 the base of the triangular tongue, all standing 

 like the pile on velvet, but hooking a little in- 

 ward, those on the .jaws largest. Fins small, 

 brownish, and their soft parts covered with a 

 rather thick mucous skin ; the dorsal round- 

 ed behind, low at the junction of the 

 spinous and soft parts, and the spinous rays 

 capable of being reclined, imbricated and 

 concealed in a longitudinal groove along the 

 back; ventrals a little behind the pectorals ; 

 the anal under the posterior portion of the 

 dorsal, and extending a little further back: 

 tail slightly emarginate with the lobes round- 

 ed. Vent a trifle nearest the posterior ex- 

 tremity. Eyes moderately large. Lower 

 jaw a trifle longer than the upper, with seve- 

 ral visible pores along its margin. Length, 

 nineteen inches ; the greatest depth equals 

 one-third of the length, exclusive of the 

 tail." 



The Spawning Season. 



These fish begin to spawn here, in Lake 

 Champlain and its tributaries, about the mid- 

 dle of May (sometimes a little earlier), and I 

 am sure all have not finished this labor before 

 the middle of June. Of three black bass 

 which I examined on the 20th of May, the 

 ova of one were ripe ; of another they lacked 

 a week or more of being so ; and those of the 

 third had the appearance of being at least 

 three weeks short of maturity. A few days 

 later I heard of beds in the same stream 

 where they were caught, that were black with 

 newly-hatched fry. The eggs from which they 

 came must have been laid at least ten days 

 before. It is the opinion of some that the fish 

 which have come to their first season of ma- 

 turity spawn considerably later, say up to the 

 middle of July; and what I saw in three in- 

 dividuals above mentioned would go to 

 strengthen this opinion; for the eggs in the 

 smallest spawner were least developed, but 

 1 would certainly have been ripe this season. 



Bass leave deep water to spawn, and come 

 into the sliallow water of tlie lake, and into 

 such streams as suit them for that purpose. 

 They desert sluggisli water with a muddy bot- 

 tom, but are not unfrequently caught therein 

 on their way to a more congenial nursery. 



Protecting their Progeny. 



Tliey scoop a shallow basin for their spawn- 

 ing bed about twice the length of the fish in 

 diameter, and in this the spawn is deposited, 

 attaching itself to the bottom ; and till hatch- 

 ing, is carefully guarded by the female, 

 who fights off all intruders, and carefully 

 removes everything which, by chance or 

 design, is cast ui)on it. This habit is 

 turned to evil account by pot fishermen, 

 who, finding a bed, drop into it a hook, light- 

 ly baited with a worm, or even naked, which 

 the fish at once seizes, to carry ofi" to the 

 sacred precincts; but before she has time to 

 drop it, is liooked and landed, while the eggs 

 or n(!wly-hatched fry arc left to be devoured 

 by tlie first predatory fish that chances to 

 come upon them. 



Inside of twelve days the eggs are hatched, 

 and for a time the female vigilantly guards her 

 young, continually swimming about her 

 swarming brood, little fellows as black as a 

 fresh hatching of poUywogs. It is said that 

 in a few days tliey scatter into deep water and 

 are seen no more until September; but I have 

 seen young ones, not more than two inches 

 long, in the middle of .sofl-finned minnows as 

 large as themselves. 



Proper Bait end Tackle. 



Bass are much fished for as soon as they 

 come on their spawning ground.s, and many 

 are taken then ; but bass fishing should not 

 properly or lawfully begin tilll the spawning 

 season is over, say the ist of July, or certain- 

 ly not earlier than the middle of June. The 

 baits used are various; worms, grasshoppers, 

 frogs, minnows, the villanous, looking dob- 

 son or helgramite, and for artifical lures, a 

 rubber imitation of the last-named, spoons, 

 and flies of various colors. The spoon is 

 used only for trolling from a boat with a hand 

 line or rod and reel, or walking along the 

 shore or bank, when a rod must of course 

 be used. Of all baits, the minnow is probably 

 the most killing. 



For bait fishing, a light rod and tackle 

 must be used if sport is the object. The pot- 

 fisherman may attain his end with a sapling 

 and a line half as big as a pipestem. The 

 common practice of our anglers is to hook the 

 minnow through lightly from side to side just 

 forward of the first dorsal, in which way he 

 will live longest and swim most naturally — a 

 cruel business; but tliere is more or less 

 cruelty in all sports of the rod and gun, and 

 where shall we draw the line ? 



How to Hook Them. 



Now cast line gently alongside a shelving 

 bank, or where the drooping branches of a 

 willow ripple the smooth current, or in the 

 eddy that swirls below a tree-root or half-sub- 

 merged log. The bass sees an easy victim, 

 dallies with it a little, sets his teeth therein, 

 and then starts off to enjoy his easily-gotten 

 morsel in some chosen nook. Give him a 

 little time, and then take your own. You 

 have him hooked; and if you deal gently with 

 him, giving way to no rash impulse, he is 

 yours to have and to hold in creel and in pan. 

 In trolling for him a small spoon is best. 

 When a bass will take the fly, ho affords a 

 sport almost as noble as do the salmon and 

 trout. A large fly is used, of a dark color for 

 clear water, but more showy for turbid water. 

 In whatever way taken with the hook, he is a 

 hard fighter, throwing himself now two or 

 three feet out of water, now running up the 

 line at topmost speed, full of devices, and 

 game to the last gasp, and it needs a cool head 

 and a skillful hand to bring him to basket; 

 and lie who brings him there safely, and surely, 

 and scientifically, may rightly feel a thrill of 

 luide and satisfaction.— i?. K Bohinson in 

 Moort'^s Rural Life. 



