802 



UNITED STATES, FISH-CULTURE IN THE. 



adult shad above the obstruction at Columbia, 

 except when there was a break in the dam. 

 We believe, therefore, that the removal of ob- 

 structions in streams would restore them to 

 something like their primitive value for the 

 fisheries. The obstructions, however, exist, 

 and the additional element of pollution enters 

 into the problem. We can not depend upon 

 Nature to restore the fisheries ; we must sup- 

 ply the deficiency by artificial hatching, and 

 facilitate the ascent of fisb in streams by intro- 

 ducing fish-ways. As early as 1830, Mr. Smith, 

 of Deanston, Scotland, invented a salmon-lad- 

 der, of which an illustration is given with this 

 article. The object of a fish-way is secured 

 by retarding the velocity of the descending 

 water sufficiently to allow the fish to overcome 

 the current and pass beyond the obstruction. 

 Numerous devices have been employed for the 

 purpose, but seldom with good results, and a 

 successful fish-way is scarcely demonstrated as 

 yet. The best general paper on the subject 

 was written by Mr. C. G. Atkins for Part II of 

 the U. S. Fish Commissioner's Report. In the 

 ''Transactions of the American Fish-cultural 

 Association for 1883 " will be found a valuable 

 paper by Col. M. McDonald, on " A New Sys- 

 tem of Fish-way Building." The McDonald 



MCDONALD FISH-WAY, ON THE KAPPAHANNOCK. 



fish-way is the most promising of recent inven- 

 tions, and there is good reason for believing 

 that it will solve the problem of impassable 

 dams. In this the water is made to act against 

 gravity by the employment of a series of bent 

 tubes, which receive the water at one end and 

 discharge it with greatly diminished force at 

 the other. 



Artificial breeding has numerous advantages 

 over natural breeding. A much greater per- 

 centage of eggs can be fertilized and developed 

 by artificial methods ; the eggs after impreg- 

 nation are protected from the inroads of their 

 numerous natural enemies, and the young 

 fishes are nourished until they have gained a 

 degree of strength which they would scarcely 

 acquire under natural conditions, and are de- 

 posited whe^e the chances for their survival 

 are the best. In a state of nature only a very 



small percentage of the eggs deposited ulti- 

 mately produce adult fishes. The ova are 

 preyed upon by hosts of insects, by swarms of 

 cyprinoids, cottoids, and siluroids, which infest 

 all streams, and by numerous aquatic birds 

 and mammals ; they are liable to be smothered 

 in a mass of mud, or washed away by floods, 

 or crushed by floating timber ; they are sub- 

 ject, also, to fatalities which do not beset them 

 in the nurseries provided by man. In the wild 

 state the larger fishes destroy the smaller, but 

 in rearing-ponds such losses are entirely pre- 

 ventable, only fishes of equal size being kept in 

 the same inclosure, and they receive a suffi- 

 cient supply of food. 



The early history of fish-culture relates to 

 the utilization of ova naturally impregnated, 

 and the rearing of fish which have been trans- 

 ferred from their natural habitat to an artifi- 

 cial one, in which they are fattened and pre- 

 pared for market. This form of fish-culture is 

 believed to have begun in China at a remote 

 date, and the literature of this portion of the 

 subject is considerable. The Chinese have ex- 

 tensively collected, transported, and developed 

 eggs laid under natural conditions, and they 

 continue to do so. The art of fish-culture, as 

 practiced to-day, dates from about the middle 

 of the eighteenth century. Stephen Ludwig 

 Jacobi, a lieutenant of militia of Lippe-Det- 

 mold, in Westphalia, was, at that date, acquaint- 

 ed with the idea of artificially impregnating the 

 eggs of fish and thereby restocking ponds and 

 streams. Jacobi's discovery was not made 

 public till 1763, when he embodied in a letter, 

 which is printed in the " Hanover Magazine," 

 the results of his experiments. As early as 

 1758 he had corresponded upon the subject 

 with Bufibn. A Latin translation of Jacobi's 

 essay was made by Count de Goldstein, and his s 

 memoir was published in French in 1770, in 

 an abridgment of the " Memoirs of the Berlin 

 Academy. In 1773 Duhamel du Monceau pub- 

 lished a translation of Jacobi's treatise on " Ar- 

 tificial Propagation," from the Latin version of 

 Goldstein ( u Traite generate des peche," etc., 

 Paris, 1773, Part II, p. 209). England was the 

 first country to recognize the importance of 

 this discovery of Jacobi. In 1771 George III 

 granted him a life-pension. The first public 

 illustration of the processes of fish-culture was 

 given in 1772 by Prof. Adanson, in his lectures 

 in the Royal Garden of Paris, now the Jar din 

 des Plantes. The first English translation of 

 Jacobi's memoirs was published in London in 

 1788, with the title U S. L. Jacobi's Method of 

 breeding Fish to Advantage." 



Notwithstanding the importance of this dis- 

 covery, it was practically lost sight of for a 

 long period, and it was then in France that the 

 revival of the art took place. The chief im- 

 portance of this renewed activity on the part 

 of the French is to be found in the stimulus 

 which it gave to new efforts in other countries, 

 particularly in the relations of governments to 

 the subject. The results accomplished by the 



