and time of taking, and were they fed at different states of development 

 in the same manner or with the same food at the different hatcheries, so 

 that there would be no variation in the method of handling other than 

 difference in the water supply at the various hatcheries? 



Mk. Titcomb : The fish were fed on pork or beef liver, or both, and at 

 one hatchery after feeding liver for a time they were largely fed on eggs 

 from suckers. I like to make a practice of buying eggs from as many 

 commercial hatcheries as possible, and if I secure 1,000,000 eggs of one 

 hatchery I put them at five or six different hatcheries, and when I 

 secure enough from one hatchery I divide them up among all the hatcheries. 

 The result is that each foreman has eggs from three to six hatcheries. 

 Sometimes the eggs of one hatchery go bad. If each foreman loses heavily 

 of eggs coming from any one commercial hatchery, I assume that the 

 trouble is at the source of supply, and the next season no purchase is made 

 from the hatchery where I got the poor eggs. I rate all of the eggs from 

 the commercial hatcheries as shown by results at each station. This is 

 well worth while ; also the commercial men like to have the data. 



Mr. Leach : Mr. Titcomb, I understand you attribute the growth of 

 the trout tO both the water supply and the food? Is it your opinion that 

 hog liver is a very suitable food for young trout? 



Mb. Titcomb: Yes, but I want to give them something else once in a 

 while to get the best results. 



Mr. Leach : Recent experience at our hatcheries has not indicated 

 that hog liver is as suitable as sheep liver or beef liver. At most of our 

 stations the opinion is that beef heart is far superior to either. Its cost 

 varies at some places more and other places less, but it probably produces 

 larger fish with less loss. 



Me. Titcomb : We have been rather limited in the expenditure for 

 food. Our appropriation for food when the war started was the same as 

 before the war, and there were times during the war when we carried our 

 stock and increased them to fingerlings on less money than was spent for 

 food before the war, and at the increased prices, because we then resorted 

 to melts and natural food like suckers, carp, and sucker eggs. I want to 

 correct one statement here about the food. At the hatchery on Chautauqua 

 Lake which was located for the propagation of muskellunge, there are 

 some artesian wells, with which we raised fingerling trout very similar to 

 these nice large fingerlings. After the fish reach a length of 1% to 2 inches 

 they are fed almost entirely on the flesh of carp caught in the lake. The 

 trout have been fed for three months at a stretch on carp, ground up the 

 same as liver. The fish are skinned and boned ; only about one-third is 

 really good flesh but it is excellent fish food. The time is coming when the 

 largest hatcheries are going to have their own cold storage plants and buy 

 some sort of fish as food for raising fish. On Lake Erie thousands of 

 small herring killed in the nets are thrown away and often the ling. They 

 would make a mighty good change in diet from liver and that sort of 

 thing. Occasionally opportunity occurs to buy a ton or so of butterfish in 

 New York for one or two cents a pound, the use of which would be made 

 possible by cold storage. Of course, there is quite a little waste, but for 

 the larger fish you can grind up the whole thing and do not have to dress 

 them at all. 



