134 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[September, 



a dark night for the purpose. A change of 

 wmd, ii clap of ihuniler, a cloudy night be- 

 coming clear and starry, will at once stop the 

 movement. 



No one has ever seen the eels returning, but 

 in the spring of the year the young eels come 

 np by millions, keeping close to the banks, 

 and swimming in almost solid columns. They 

 will surmount almost any obstacle, creeping 

 wherever there is any moisture, oftentimes 

 through grass and over stones and timber. 

 This "eel fare" lasts several days; and the 

 tiny elves, something like darning needles in 

 size, ean sometimes be scooped out by the 

 bucketful, and applied to the land for manure, 

 baked into cakes for the men, or given to the 

 pigs for food. 



But to return to the movements of the eels 

 in the migrating season. Big and little, old 

 and young, start on this singular voyage; and 

 big and little, old and young, remain and 

 "bed" themselves. Thousands of bubbles 

 rising to the surface show where they work 

 far down into the soft mnd. This bedding is 

 to escape the cold wtnter to which eels are 

 very sensitive, and is easily intelligible. But 

 why do they migrate '? For one reason, the 

 brackish water,estuaries and harbors,is warm- 

 er than either sea or river. The admixture 

 of fluids of different densities causes a rising 

 temperature, and fresh and salt water are 

 daily mixed by the tides, and lessen the cold. 

 Thus while some eels prefer to seek the warmth 

 of the mud, others seek heat in brackish 

 water. But sooner or later, all eels of the 

 silver-bellied species go down to the sea, and 

 none of those that go down return. This is 

 spoken of so positively by all eel-fishers, that 

 it cannot be doubted; and in such rivers as 

 the Severn, there is no room for doubt, be- 

 cause of the facilities there are for observa- 

 tion. Then how is the supply kept up; and 

 how is it that eels are always found in the 

 river of a large size? 



The answers to these questions are, that 

 young ones are produced; and the eels are so 

 that although immense numbers leave the 

 rivers each year, yet equally immense num- 

 bers remain. Now comes the curious part of 

 it, so far ar Norfolk rivers are concerned. In 

 other rivers the procreation takes place large- 

 ly in the estuaries or sea, and the elvers re- 

 turn to stock the rivers. In the lower part of 

 the Norfolk river the elvers are not noticed in 

 spring, or any other time of the year; and so 

 continually are these eel-men on the river day 

 and night that such a phenomenon conld 

 hardly escape their attention. Neither could 

 they fail to detect the return of the old eel, 

 supposing they came back singly or in small 

 detachments, for seeing that the cold weather 

 does not end until March, and that the eels 

 begin to descend in .July, and contimie until 

 theead of,November,only three months would 

 be allowed for their ascent, so that if they 

 did ascend they must come up in droves. 



We have all heard of the notion that 

 chopped horse hairs thrown into the water 

 turn into eels, and the many other ideas ac- 

 counting for their breeding in equally absurd 

 ways. Some of the more intelligent, however, 

 believe that the young ones are produced in 

 the river in the spring, and have been stated 

 positively that tliey have cut eels open in 

 February and found them full of young eels. 



It is only at the first obstacles on the rivers 

 Yare and Bure— the flouring mills on the up- 

 per reaches— that the elvers are ever noticed; 

 and here they appear in large numbers. In 

 the "New Mills" in the city of Norwich is a 

 building which completely spans the stream. 

 There are brick walls on each side of the 

 river, and no means of access save through the 

 sluices, and by the floats of the wheels. Here 

 the tiny elvers force their way in countless 

 thousands, wriggling through every crevice, 

 on their upward march. But it is positively 

 stated that no adult eels ever ascend, yet be- 

 tween "hay harvest" and November the eels 

 descend in thousands, and of all sizes. Now, 

 although the silver-bellied eel is undoubtedly 

 a fast grower, yet eels of the size caught in 

 the nets at the New Mills must be several 

 years old, and must have passed all their 

 days, since elverhood, above the mills. Can it 

 then be reasonably supposed that these eels 

 have passed so much of their lives without 

 procreation of their species? This can scarce- 

 ly be; and it is therefore a fiiir conclusion 

 that the procreation of a large number of eels 

 takes place in fresh water. This leads then 

 to the question. What is the object of the 

 yearly migration of the silver-bellied eel ? 

 If the above suggestions are correct, it can- 

 not be for breeding purposes alone; and it is 

 more than probable that, as eels multiply as 

 fast as other fish and probably grow faster, 

 and as they bring forth their young alive, and 

 so are not subject to so many chances of de- 

 struction as the spawn of other fish; their 

 numbers are so incredibly large that the rivers 

 must get over-crowded. Therefore each year 

 a certain portion "swarms" off and is lost in 

 the sea. 



It will have been noticed that the eel has 

 been alluded to as being viviparous. Natu- 

 ralists aflirm that the eel deposits in spawn as 

 other fish do, and state that the microscope 

 reveals the presence of spawn and milt in the 

 eel. This is so much opposed to all the state- 

 ments and experience of eel-fishers and eel- 

 setters that it cannot be accepted as a fact, 

 and after listening to so many eel-fishers who 

 stoutly affirm that they have constantly 

 opened eels in February that have been full 

 of minute living eels (not parasites), and that 

 in a tub of eels young ones have been found 

 in the morning that were not there over night, 

 we strongly lean to the theory that eels are 

 viviparous. 



The young fry are contained in a membran- 

 ous sac, as long and thick as one's finger, and 

 eyes and back-bones of the fry are distinguish- 

 able. When the sac is cut open, the fry un- 

 bend themselves and wriggle about. Kels are 

 found in this State during February, March 

 and April. 



Selections. 



A GRAND HARVEST. 

 From all parts of the country we have con- 

 current reports of the abundance of nearly or 

 quite all the staple crops produced by our ag- 

 riculture. Not only is the prospect good, but 

 already the receipts at the leading commercial 

 centres of the seaboard and the West far ex- 

 ceed those of last year at the corj-e.s|)onding 

 periods. AVhat is still more remarkable is 

 the fact that the European harvests are rath- 



er short, especially those in the British Isles; 

 while the troubles in Ireland interfere very 

 sadly with the harvest there, and the Egyp- 

 tian war threatens that country with famine. 

 Thus financiers and speculators appear at the 

 present time to agree in regarding the condi- 

 tion of things commercially as highly favor- 

 .able to another large increase of the balance 

 of trade in favor of this republic in her com- 

 merce with the world at large. It is true that 

 nominally this balance has still been in our 

 favor during the whole of the year, notwith- 

 standing the shortness of the crops of last sea- 

 son; but Ufeverthele.'-s, the current of gold 

 turned towards Europe and has caused us a 

 net loss of at least 120,000,000 of our stock of 

 gold; while at the time our foreign debt has 

 again been increasing in consequence of the 

 enormous railway building movement in this 

 country, and the excessive demand for large 

 loans of money for that pui-pose abroad and 

 at home. 



But it is now considered quite probable that 

 the American harvest will be so vast as to 

 stimulate a tremendous export trade in all our 

 food-products ond agricultural staples, and 

 thus to compel the European bankers to make 

 exchange either by shipment of gold hither or 

 by the return of masses of American stocks 

 and bonds. These alternative would be quite 

 acceptable to the country, for although the 

 gold would of course be preferred, as under 

 all circumstances the best and most substan- 

 tial consideration, yet the liquidation of the 

 whole of the foreign debt is thegreateat possi- 

 ble desideratum known to American finance. 



It will be perceived that this present pros- 

 pect is wholly due to the blessings of Provi- 

 dence upon the labors of our husbandmen in 

 those arts which some politicical economists 

 have foolishly discouraged as fit only tor bar- 

 barians. We have several times spoken of 

 last year's crops as having been unusually 

 short, but we must beg our readers to bear in 

 mind that those crops supplied all the wants 

 of our own people with a large margin for 

 export and a considerable surplus to carry us 

 safely through the year until the new harvest 

 of the present season could be garnered. We 

 consider this as a remarkable illustration of 

 the safety of this country from the dangers of 

 famine, since it was precisely a similar state 

 of aflairs which in 1880 forced France to ship 

 to the United States !3;iO,000,000 in gold to 

 buy food to supply the deficiencies of her own 

 crops. — Oerniantown Telegraph. 



OCCUPATION AND LONGEVITY. 



"Woe to them that are at ease!" says Car- 

 lyle, but his anathema does not prevent the 

 English village parson from outliving every 

 other class of his countrymen, not excepting 

 the British farmer, whose peace of mind can- 

 not always be reconciled with high rents and 

 the low price of American wheat. Where 

 agriculture is what it would be — a contract 

 between man and nature, in the United 

 States, in Australia, and in some parts of 

 Switzerland — the plow furrow is the straight- 

 est road to longevity; in Canada wheie nature 

 is rather a hard taskmaker, the probabilities 

 are in favor of such half-indoor trades as car- 

 pentering and certain branches of horticul- 

 ture — summer farming as the Germans call it. 

 Cold is an antiseijtic, and the best febrifuge, 



