GROWING THE LARGE TROUT. 239 



If you have too many on hand in the spring, and 

 have no means of pasturing them, then kill and sell 

 them for what you can get while they are in good con- 

 dition ; it is better than to have them die of the heat. 

 If you know of no one that wants them, then pack 

 them in ice, and consign them to some good firm in 

 Fulton Fish Market, New York City, to sell on com- 

 mission. Fresh brook trout are always in demand 

 there. 



But if the dry time comes suddenly, and you are 

 caught with too many trout on hand and a short supply 

 of water, you have two remedies. One is to use ice ; 

 if you are not in a very bad predicament, a moderate 

 quantity of ice, used three hours a day, the hot 

 interval between i p. M. and 4 p. M. being the worst 

 time for the water, will often save them. The other 

 remedy is to reservoir part of the water in the stream 

 above the trout during the cool of the night, and let it 

 on by degrees in the hottest part of the day; this will 

 answer to some extent, when the days only are hot. But 

 if the heat and drought are extreme and long continued, 

 and nights and days are both hot, then neither ice nor 

 reserves of water will save your trout in an overstocked 

 pond, and you must lose them. I will merely add that 

 a plethoric condition of the fish, and an uncleanly pond, 

 increase very much the dangers of the dry season. 



3. Guard against heated water. This point is some- 

 what related to the last, inasmuch as the water is usu- 

 ally the hottest at the dryest time, and the warmer it 

 is the less stock it will keep. But there is also danger 

 of the water heating up enough to kill the fish, even 



