302 Reminiscences of 



down half way along the eight hundred miles of the 

 California coast. The annual pack from California 

 to Alaska represents an average of about eleven hun- 

 dred thousand cases of forty-eight pounds to the 

 case, and as three salmon on the average are required 

 for a case, the number of salmon annually canned 

 would amount to between three and four millions. 

 The consumption does not seem yet to diminish 

 seriously the supply, though the number packed va- 

 ries considerably, sometimes running down to seven or 

 eight hundred thousand cases and up to a million 

 and three quarters of cases. 



Little progress has been made on the Pacific Coast 

 in artificial propagation; although the ova or eggs 

 of the salmon are detached and free at exudation, 

 as with all the Salmo genera, there does not seem 

 to have been any very successful artificial breeding 

 of the salmon anywhere, despite all assertions to 

 the contrary. In fact in Canada, where for years 

 the artificial breeding of salmon has been pursued, 

 it is claimed that no material advantages have been 

 gained, and the subject is now one of controversy 

 between two prominent fish culturists — Mr. Samuels, 

 of Boston, in the affirmative and W. H. Venning, 

 of Ontario, in the negative — and as Mr. Venning 

 has been for many years a commissioner of the Can- 

 adian fisheries, his arguments seem well supported, 

 and his experience would seem to have much weight. 



Yet the importance of this subject is too great 

 to be hastily summed up, and while the weight of evi- 

 dence has been largely with Venning, that more late- 

 ly given by Samuels, including the results obtained 

 from the superintendents of half a dozen Canadian 



