286 TROUT CULTURE. 



practically developed what had been previously known 

 to eminent men of science as a scientific curiosity, 

 and not as of practical utility. A few years saw 

 the whole of the rivers and streams of the Vosges, 

 Moselle, and Bas-Rhin, which had previously been 

 almost depopulated, well stocked with fish. The 

 Government, on its part, saw that the application of 

 artificial propagation to the rivers and streams of the 

 whole country would not only afford employment to 

 a vast number of persons, but would enable an 

 immense addition to be made, at scarcely any expense, 

 to the food supply of the nation. The lakes and 

 rivers of France were therefore replenished with not 

 only trout and salmon, but with divers other species 

 of fresh water fish. The United States have since 

 adopted this method of replenishing their somewhat 

 exhausted waters, and with still greater success. 



Though we in the narrow boundaries of our sea-girt 

 isle, do not look upon our inland fisheries as being 

 so much the auxiliary of our national bread-basket, 

 as a field for a time-honoured national pastime and 

 recreation, still, as the popularity of this sport widens 

 yearly, the artificial propagation of our best kinds of 

 migratory and non-migratory fish ought to, and must, 

 be cultivated in corresponding degree. Long and 

 patient study of the habits of male and female fish at 

 spawning time proves that scarcely one in a hundred 

 of the eggs deposited by the female in the beds of 

 rivers, and duly fecundated, come to maturity, the 

 rest being devoured by other fish, washed away, or 

 destroyed by the shifting bed of the water. It is also 



