32 TROUT CULTURE. 



himself, saying that it was as good as a patent to him, 

 and so it was. However, before the advent of the 

 Russian method, men on this side of the Atlantic had 

 come to the same conclusion, and eighty per cent, of 

 impregnation had been reached; aye, ninety also, but 

 only by old and knowing operators. By the new pro- 

 cess the merest tyro may obtain ninety or ninety-five 

 per cent. 



The following account, showing the discovery and 

 superiority of the "Russian" or dry method of spawn- 

 ing, was printed in the New York Citizen and Round 

 Table, May 27, 1871, and published in Domesticated 

 Trout, by L. Stone : 



" In his experiments, M. Vrasski had followed the 

 counsels given in French and German works on pisci- 

 culture, but the results obtained were far from being 

 brilliant. In reality, at each hatching he obtained but 

 an insignificant number. ' From many thousands of 

 eggs,' says he in a letter, ' there were only some dozens 

 of young fry. The rest of the eggs were lost and 

 spoilt for want of being impregnated. I have, how- 

 ever, followed with scrupulous exactness all the 

 directions given in the manuals for fecundation.' In 

 the autumn of 1856, M. Vrasski was occupied with 

 the microscopic examination of the eggs and milt, and 

 kept a journal in which he registered the least circum- 

 stances and incidents relative to each fecundation that 

 he effected. Two months of persistent efforts brought 

 the desired results. The journal and the microscope 

 proved to him that the cause of his failure proceeded 

 precisely from the exact observation of all the counsels 

 of the foreign manuals. It is necessary for fecunda- 

 tion that the spermatozoa of the milt of the male 



