152 BULLETIN OP THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



Hon. A. Nelson Cheney, of New York, was then presented and made the following 

 to the governor's address of welcome: 



Your Excellency, Ladies, and Gentlemen : On behalf of the delegates of the National Fishery Con- 

 greaa I desire to thank yon, and also the people of Florida, for your most gracious welcome. As you 

 have said, the food problem is a most important one to this country and all countries, and the fish food 

 is not the least important. 



Called upon unexpectedly, as I have been, I thought that I could do no better than to state to you 

 the beginning of fish propagation, leading back some centuries. It is said in the encyclopedias that 

 China < practiced fish-culture. If they did it is not probable that they practiced the fish- 



ctilturu that we know to-day. The history of our fish-culture has never been written, and I regret 

 ttiat I must trust to my memory as to dates. It is recorded that a French marquis hatched fish in 

 1 120. By those best informed it is believed that he did not do more than to transport the fertilized 

 eggs of fish from one water to another. The real father of fish-culture was Stephen L. .Jacobi, a Ger- 

 man fish-breeder, who announced the discovery in 1761. He practiced it for some twenty years before 

 that date. His observations were conducted in a little wooden trough, and he himself or his sons 

 continued the work for thirty or forty years. He is undoubtedly the father of fish-culture, as we 

 -rand fish-culture to-day. His methods were translated into French, Italian, and English, and 

 George III granted him a life pension. 



Down to 1848 there is little or no record of fish-cultural work. Two French fishermen, Remy and 

 Gehin, discovered, as they claimed, the process of hatching fish artificially, and were brought to Paris 

 and there conducted a number of experiments, which happened to bo witnessed by Dr. E. S. Sterling, 

 from Cleveland, Ohio, who Lad as a classmate in Cleveland a Dr. Garlick. Dr. Sterling went abroad 

 to complete his studies, and there witnessed the experiments. In 1853 Dr. Garlick brought trout 

 from Lake Superior to a stream or pond near Cleveland, took the eggs of trout, artificially fertilized 

 them, and hatched them in 1854. Those were the first fish to be hatched artificially in the United 

 States. I>r. Sterling was then in Cleveland and knew nothing about this experiment until he was 

 called on by Dr. Garlick to look at the trout. Dr. Sterling is credited as being the author of the 

 experiments as practiced by Dr. Garlick. Soon after these experiments were made known, as they 

 were in a pajier before the Cleveland Academy of Science, it was claimed that the fish had been 

 Latched artificially in 1804 in this country, but this was found to be a mistake. 



The first act of any State legislature looking to the propagation of fishes was a resolution passed 

 by the legislature of Massachusetts in lxr>6. The States formed fish commissions from that date, and 

 in 1872 the United States Fish Commission was organized largely at the instigation of the Ameri- 

 can Fisheries Society, as it is now called; it was formerly the American Fish-Cultural Association. 

 One of the first acts of the society was to appoint delegates to go to Washington and recommend the 

 creation of a United States Fish Commission. We all know the workings of the United States 

 Fifth ( 'nmiiiission and the State fish commissions, because almost every State in the Union has a 

 commission now. 



lie Jollowing telegrams were read: 



~ "^ - ~* WASHINGTON, D. C., Jan nan/ 



The Secretary of State of the United States has the pleasure to extend cordial greetings to the 

 il Fishery Congress now assembled at Tampa, in the hope that its deliberations and results will 

 farther the important objects proposed to be attained. 



JOHN si i K.I:. MAN. 



LONDON, K\<;I,AM>, January SO. 

 The world will be benefited by your Fishery Congress. Success to it. 



R. MILLER ARNOLD. 



DUSSF.I ii:r. GERMANY, January 19. 



Accept my hearty congratulations for the great movement you have inaugurated. May success 

 attend your deliberations. The International Fishery Congress which you propose to organize is 

 destined to benefit the whole world. 



PETER LIEBER. 



WASHINGTON, D. C., January 19, 1898. 

 Accept my best wishes for success of National Fishery Congress. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 



