Ihe man who owned the ponds, soon found 

 means to dispossess him after getting an insight 

 into his methods and control of the stock. So far 

 as I could ever see or find out this brief exper- 

 ience of Mulertt's in pond breeding, and his 

 book, were his sole contribution to fine goldfish 

 culture. In that, however, he deserves credit, 

 and the sympathy that should go to all such as 

 are balked in their endeavors to advance any 

 form of human endeavor. 



At all events the first long straight-tails to be 

 sold in considerable numbers came from Mul- 

 ertt's ex-partner and another man who took up 

 the industry in the same vicinity. 



The most extensive and profitable hatchery 

 for fine goldfish in the United States was estab- 

 lished upon the advent of the new importations 

 about 1889, by the late Wm. Shoup of Shelby 

 Co., Indiana. The ponds cover about fifteen 

 acres and produce yearly about one hundred 

 thousand fish of various qualities, among which 

 are many thousands of so called "Comets" which 

 are the progeny of fantails. 



In 1882 I asked Prof. Spencer F. Baird, then 

 Commissioner of Fisheries, for a fine pair, but I 

 did not receive them until 1884, the custodian 

 and breeder of them being very loath to let 

 fine specimens go out of his hands, preferring to 

 hold them for senators and representatives and 

 other people of consequence. Only a final per- 

 emptory order from the Commissioner brought 

 them. Though the custodian apparently did not 

 know anything about selective breeding and did 

 nothing to keep the stock up to a high standard 

 he was evidently ayerse to allowing fine ones 

 to get into the hands of anyone who could. The 

 male was a fantail, but the female was a straight- 

 tail. They would have been considered very 

 fine fish today, much finer than such scale-fish 

 as are imported. The female had a very broad 

 spread of tail which was at least as long as 

 her head and body, and I think longer. This 

 pair of fish became the progenitors of quite as 

 beautiful a stock of scale fantails and straight 

 tails as we have today from the newer stock. 

 The late Dr. Wm. H. Wahl, Secretary of the 



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