TAKING THE EGGS. 105 



the percentage has ranged all the way from ninety 

 and eighty to fifteen, and has probably not averaged 

 throughout the country over fifty or sixty per cent.* 

 The gain, of course, is enormous, as will be seen by 

 the following table : 



The average yield of By the old method. By the new method. 



1,000 eggs is 600 950 



10,000 eggs is 6,000 9,5oo 



100,000 eggs is 60,000 95,ooo 



1,000,000 eggs is 600,000 950,000 



" When to this is added the consideration that all 

 the worthless eggs must be picked out one by one, by 

 hand, in the coldest season of the year, and that to 

 pick out three hundred and fifty thousand eggs (the 

 difference in each million between the two methods) 

 requires, in practice, at least thirty-five days of inces- 

 sant and tedious labor, the immense advantage and 

 importance of the new discovery becomes obvious. 



" It will mark a new era, we are confident, in trout 

 and salmon breeding, and will entirely revolutionize 

 the system of impregnating the eggs of these fish. No 

 one, hereafter, who has heard of the new method, will 

 ever take the eggs of any cold-water fish by the old 

 one. It is a very significant circumstance that Seth 

 Green, with his wonderful insight, reached the same 

 result nearly ten years ago by using a very small 

 amount of water in the impregnating pan. 



* There is not the same difference in impregnating the eggs 

 of warm-water fish. Perch and shad, for instance, will yield 

 nearly one hundred per cent good eggs taken in a pan full of 

 water, the natural temperature of which, when these fish spawn, 

 runs from a minimum of 50 F. with the perch to a maximum of 

 90, and even more, with the shad. 



