NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 339 



operations in Caledonia. New Hampshire was soon followed by Massachusetts and 

 other States, and in 1871 the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, through 

 the efforts of Prof. Spencer F. Baird, was created by Congress, and the same year, 

 also, the American Fish-Culturists' Association was formed, now the American Fish- 

 eries Society. By this time there were also innumerable trout-culturists in the field, 

 and fish-culture in the United States may be said to have passed the days of its 

 infancy and to be fairly on its feet. 



In looking back over those early years and contrasting them with the present, 

 when such an immense mass of information is available, one is forcibly struck by the 

 almost universal ignorance on the subject that prevailed at that time. This was true 

 not only of people generally, but of well informed men also, for even scientists who 

 rightly deserved the name, and university graduates and accomplished scholars who 

 prided themselves on the variety of their knowledge, and reading men who kept up 

 with the magazines and newspapers, could tell you nothing of this new art of fish- 

 culture. Yet this was not so very surprising, for books had not then been published 

 in this country on the subject, magazine articles about it had not appeared, cyclo 

 pedias did not contain the" information, or at most only the merest outlines of it, and 

 unless one happened to come across the not easily-accessible reports of specialists 

 there was no avenue open to the public by which more than a superficial knowledge 

 of the subject could be reached. People generally were so utterly ignorant indeed of 

 the whole subject that almost any story told about fish eggs would pass unchallenged. 

 How different from the present day, when the minute fish life of the very bottom of 

 the oceans is closely and thoroughly studied, and the fish food furnished by the 

 microscopic life of the fresh-water lakes is measured and classified. 



To go back in memory to those early days is not only to enter the enchantment 

 that distance brings, but it is also to return to what was a real enchantment then. It 

 seems as if we should never feel again I know I am expressing the feelings of all the 

 early experimenters in hatching fish it seems as if we should never feel again, and 

 we probably never shall feel again the thrill of excitement that tingled to our fingers' 

 ends when we first saw the little black speck in the unhatched embryo, which told us 

 that our egg was alive. It was one of the dearest sights on earth to. us then. And 

 when the first little trout emerged from his shell and wriggled in the water, why 

 were we so excited and elated? Was it because we unconsciously felt that we were 

 sharing with others in a great discovery? Was it because that little fish opened up 

 to us a new world of promise, and because we had a dim vision of the countless 

 multitudes of living creatures that this little embryo was the insignificant forerunner 

 of ? I suppose it was something of the sort, and now after those long years have 

 passed and we coldly watch under a microscope, with half- scientific interest, the 

 development of this little black speck, named by scientists the "choroid pigment," 

 but which will always be dear to us as the " eye-spot," we can hardly believe that such 

 a commonplace, matter-of-fact affair could ever have stirred our feelings and our 

 imagination as it did once, when the sight and the sensation were both new, and the 

 world of promise before us was untried and unknown. 



Kecalling those early years, two figures stand out in memory more prominently 

 than all others. One is the figure of a strong-featured, broad-browed man, of a rugged 

 frame and a rugged countenance. He had the bearing and the look of a man who 

 thought no struggle too severe for him and no foe too formidable. He looks the strong 

 man that he is. He is of the Zachary Taylor " rough-and-ready" type, but withal he 



