TROUT PROPAGATION 



make their spawning-beds. Even with gravel but a 

 small percentage of eggs deposited naturally are 

 hatched, but if deposited in the soft bottom they may 

 be lost entirely. During the past season I examined a 

 trout-pond at the request of a committee of gentlemen 

 who had stocked it, and found there was very little 

 gravel where springs boil from the bottom, and trout 

 had been in the habit of spawning, and that little had 

 been covered by vegetable growth. I suggested that 

 spawning-beds be provided by hauling gravel on the 

 ice in winter, spreading it over the places where the 

 springs came from the bottom, and when the ice 

 melted the gravel would settle evenly over the vegeta- 

 ble growth and provide the only thing which appeared 

 to be needed to make the pond suitable for the propa- 

 gation of trout, for the water was pure and cool, and 

 there was an abundance of fish-food. Streams that are 

 subject to sudden and severe freshets may have not 

 only the spawning-beds ripped up and destroyed, but 

 the food of the fish may be washed out of the stream 

 and will need to be replaced artificially. 



Suckers are very destructive of trout-spawn, but 

 after an examination of several small Adirondack lakes, 

 that are natural trout-waters, but from which the trout 

 have become practically exterminated, I am of the 

 opinion that bullheads are to be charged with the de- 

 struction, more than any other one thing, men always 

 excepted. Bullheads have not, perhaps, the general 

 reputation for destroying trout-spawn that the sucker 

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