16 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS. 



To take advantage of this generous offer on the part of the United 

 States Fish Commission, I immediately, on my return from Lake Tahoe, 

 started to look up a place on the headwaters of the Sacramento River 

 for the erection of an extensive hatchery to accommodate this large num- 

 ber of eggs when hatched out. The necessary conditions for hatching 

 out so many eggs, and the large trough space for nurseries to keep in 

 good condition the young fish until they are old enough to ship, are 

 a good sized stream of pure, cold spring water with no possibility of 

 floods washing out the ditches or flumes that take the water to the 

 hatchery, and with a right at all times to control a sufficient quantity 

 of water for all purposes. It was also essential that the hatchery should 

 be at a convenient distance from the railroad station and a telegraph 

 office for convenience of shipping the fish to distant points; also, a point 

 on the river, whence it was, owing to its accessibility, the cheapest to 

 reach by wagon road the greatest number of the branches of the head- 

 waters of the Sacramento River. For the shipping of even one million 

 of young fish to distant points and properly distributing them over the 

 nursery grounds is a costly and tedious operation. 



After examining the Sacramento River for the best place in my opin- 

 ion, I selected, with the consent of Mr. J. H. Sisson, a site in the field 

 back of his barn about three quarters of a mile from the railroad station 

 in the town of Sisson. The spot selected is well drained, sunny, and 

 sheltered from the prevailing winds, and with an open view of old Mount 

 Shasta. 



The water for the hatchery comes from a large spring, about one and 

 a half miles distant, which forms the extreme head of one of the branches 

 of the Sacramento River. Its volume is sufficient to run a sawmill, and 

 its temperature is 46 degrees Fahrenheit at all seasons. The main ditch 

 from this spring runs near by the hatchery. It seemed to be an ideal 

 place for a hatchery, and also most conveniently situated for distributing 

 the fish to the proper nursing grounds. In the two years of experience 

 since the hatcher was built, in hatching the millions of trout and salmon 

 eggs, the expectations have been more than fulfilled. The waters seem 

 to have a marvelous virtue in maintaining the health of the young fish 

 as well as having a sparkling taste to the palate. The hatchery was built 

 in expeditious haste to prepare it in one month for the reception of the 

 expected salmon eggs from the September run of fish at the McCloud 

 River Hatchery. 



The hatchery is a plain building forty feet by sixty feet, strongly built, 

 with a half pitch roof which has resisted the tremendous snows of the 

 past winter. It has a capacity for forty-four hatching troughs sixteen 

 feet long and sixteen inches wide. The troughs are made of one and 

 one half-inch dressed pine, and are painted with three coats of asphalt 

 varnish to prevent the wood from growing a fungus, which would 

 destroy the young fish. A head trough sixteen inches square, prepared 

 in the same way, runs the entire length of the building, sixty feet, which 

 furnishes water through gates to the hatching troughs. A large filter- 

 ing tank outside, and a flume about one hundred yards long, connect 

 the hatchery with the main ditch. The hatchery has a system of 

 troughs beneath the floor to carry off the water from all the hatching 

 troughs to a waste ditch outside. 



A room fourteen by sixteen feet, for the men to live in, was finished 

 in the upper part of the hatchery. 



