ALASKA INDUSTRIES 449 



spawning, they are impounded in a trap below the dam, picked up with a dip net, and 

 carefully placed above the dam, from whence they quickly proceed up to the lake, 

 where they lie in the still, deep water until ripe for spawning, a period of from two 

 to six weeks. They then take to the small clear streams running into the lake, where 

 they are again impounded by means of a weir and trap, and are stripped of their 

 eggs. The eggs are then fertilized by stripping the male over them, placed in baskets, 

 and set in troughs in the way usual in all hatcheries. A peculiarity about this class 

 of salmon, the Oncorhynchus nerka, is that they will not frequent a stream unless it 

 has a lake where they can lie and ripen before spawning, although they never spawn 

 in the lake; all the other species of Alaskan salmon frequent the streams where they 

 can obtain spawning ground indiscriminately whether they have lakes or not. 



My object in damming my stream near tide water is to keep back all enemies of 

 the young fry, such as sea trout, bull heads, sculpins, sticklebacks, etc. ; by this 

 means I have my lake and streams cleared of these scourges of the young salmon, 

 as they are all salt-water fish, and only go up to the lakes for plunder, returning to 

 salt water when their season is over. Of course there were many of them in the 

 lake and streams the first year, but when they passed down over the dam they could 

 never return. To protect the young fry from their enemies in the fresh water I 

 believe to be the great secret of successful salmon propagation. There is no bar to 

 the number of young that can be produced at the Government hatcheries, where the 

 spawn in unlimited quantities can be obtained. But unless protected from their 

 enemies while young (and everything large enough to swallow them are their ene- 

 mies) a large proportion of them are destroyed in fresh water. In my own case, 

 however, the supply of fish is limited, and all are utilized. 



My lake now fairly swarms with young salmon where heretofore scarcely one 

 could be seen. I find, however, that the sea trout and others named are not their 

 only enemies. Their older brothers feed on the young fry. The young salmon 

 remain in the fresh water where they were hatched fourteen to eighteen months, so 

 they have from two to four months to prey on their young brothers. Then, after 

 going to sea, they will return for a short time to their native streams for a cannibal- 

 istic feast, and here again in my case my dam acts as protector to the little ones, as 

 when once they pass down they can not return. I have seen them in vast numbers 

 about the size of sardines, and packed almost as close, below the dam, trying to get up, 

 but they soon disappear and return to salt water: In connection with this matter 

 of protecting the younger from their older brothers, I last year commenced an exper- 

 imental process, which I feel encouraged to believe will prove successful; that is, 

 by turning out a portion of my young fry in streams, on which there are lakes that 

 fall into the sea by falls, over which no fish can pass. As a consequence, most of 

 these streams and lakes are entirely barren of fish of any kind. There are three 

 streams and lakes of this description contiguous to my hatchery. In the winter of 

 1894-95 I placed 1,000,000 young fry into one of these lakes, and the present season 

 of 1895-96 will place 2,000,000 in another lake, and so keep on alternating until I 

 prove whether they will return to these streams. At the same time I will keep on 

 stocking my own hatchery lake with as many as I think it will sustain. If my 

 experiment of stocking these heretofore barren lakes and streams proves successful, 

 and I can see no reason why it should not, it will prove of great value to the salmon 

 fisheries of this coast, as these lakes abound all along the Alaskan coast. 



I commenced my hatchery in the fall of 1892, but owing to the impure water of 

 the creek, which contains a large amount of impurities, had but indifferent success, 

 turning out only about 600,000. I then moved my hatchery up to the lake, three- 

 fourths of a mile, where I found streams of pure water and even temperature, 

 45 in summer and never below 38 in winter, and then the fish ripened more 

 healthily, as they were in their natural water. In the fall of 1893, however, there 

 was but a small run of salmon, but the eggs hatched much better and I turned out 

 about 1,700,000 young fry. The season of 1894-95 we had a better run and turned 

 out 1,500,000 in one hatchery lake and 1,000,000 in the barren lake before mentioned. 

 The present winter of 1895-96 wo will turn out 4,000,000 or over, having had a much 

 larger run than usual, which we will distribute between our hatchery lake and two 

 other barren lakes. These three barren lakes are situated, respectively, 3, 6, and 9 

 miles from our hatchery, and entails a good deal of labor and expense cutting trails 

 and carrying the young fish in buckets to their nursery. There are a few echoes 

 (Oncorhynchun kisutch) that frequent our stream, but never more than 400. As they 

 are a good fish, although not as valuable as the sukkesh, we also pass them over the 

 dam and strip them. Their time of running is about six weeks later than the sukkesh. 



Owing to the srnallness of our hatchery stream, we have opportunities of observing 

 the habits of the salmon with greater accuracy than on large streams. From close 

 observation made for a number of years, I am of the opinion that no salmon return 

 to the sea after ascending for propagating purposes, unless their natural habits of 

 copulating are interferred with. I am, however, of the opinion that some of the 

 males will return if they are kept from the spawning beds and from performing the 



H. Doc- 92, pt. 2 29 



