2G1 



paralyse our efforts; there is no question about it. As I said this morning, the 

 very direction Mr. Stewart is seeking to have taken in Canada is the very direc- 

 tion we are seeking, and that is to have the provinces or local commonwealths 

 take care of the fishing on their own borders ; let them go hand in hand, as they 

 necessarily must. Any movement that may be taken by the United States Fish 

 Commission towards enlarging its work on these lakes will meet with the most 

 hearty co-operation from the Michigan Board, and I am sure will from the Wis- 

 consin Board, and the neighbouring boards. We have had numerous conferences 

 with those north- western commissions and we are in hearty accord with them. I 

 recall the commission at Put-in-Bay ; I remember very well how several members 

 of the Ohio commission felt grieved on that occasion; they felt as though the 

 state, instead of withdrawing from the work, ought to increase it. There is no 

 difficulty and no danger whatever of too much money being expended in that 

 kind of work ; and it is not enormously expensive, either. The difficulty is to 

 interest people. We have got Michigan pretty well educated. We haven't had 

 much difficulty in several years in getting such reasonable appropriations as we 

 ask for. It would surprise you to know that one of the arguments made use of by 

 one of the patrons of industry, (he was about the only one, that is, he and one or two 

 who stood by him, against the appropriation) was " this propagation of fish is so 

 cheapening the food that it comes in competition with our pork." That is one of 

 the things which we have tried to make the people believe and this man came out 

 and argued it and it had the effect we supposed. I hope the time will come when 

 every fish that is taken, of wall-eyed pike and whitefish, shall have its eggs taken 

 and propagated before it is killed and eaten. We have the control of the whole 

 length of the Detroit River on the American side and that is what we are doing 

 with it; we need, to fill our Detroit hatchery, ten thousand whitefish, ten 

 thousand mature fish. As I said, it takes, to fill our Detroit hatchery, about a 

 hundred bushel of eggs. 



All movements this commission will make that will prevent the depletion of 

 our lakes, will have the hearty concurrence of our commission, and we will do 

 anything in reason that shall be recommended, and we flatter ourselves we have 

 some considerable influence with our legislature, too. 



I suppose there are more whitefish taken at Sandusky than any other point 

 in the world. The same force that takes and hatches our whitefish, which are 

 taken in the fall, as you know, and hatched in March or Ap:-il, that 

 same force as soon as the whitefish are out of the jars, takes the wall-eyed 

 pike. It is essential for our inland planting, we take and plant out in 

 our inland lakes, and it is our design, as far as possible, to fill the jars 

 as full as we can. We take off the wall-eyed pike eggs and plant them, 

 and they hatch in about thirty days, and hatch them with but little ex- 

 pense. Suppose the commercial fishing should be taken away from us, that 

 would certainly go with the other, and we might as well hatch whitefish and 

 wall-eyed pike as to hatch either one, and we have a great many inland lakes 

 that are well adapted for the breeding of wall-eyed pike ; and the wall-eyed pike, 

 with the scarcity of whitefish, is getting to be reckoned with the^whitefish in the 

 market ; it certainly stands only second in the market to the whitefish. 



Mr.AMSDEN: Mr. Chairman, as Senator McNaugh ton remarked this morn- 

 ing, there was a time when we had an abundance of food fish in Lake Ontario. 

 He put it back further than I should. Within a shorter time our markets have 

 been supplied from that source with whitefish, and at much less price than at 

 present and with fish very superior to any other. 



