Discussion. 



Mb. J. W. TiTCOMB, Albany, N. Y. : Mr. Leach, are you getting from, 

 the mush feed more than you formerly got? 



Mr. G. C. Leach, Washington, D. C. : Probably less, as we are using 

 cheaper material, shorts in place of low grade flour. 



Me. Titcomb: Do you use twice as much mush as liver, as indicated 

 by Dr. Kendall? 



Mb. Leach : For adult trout two-thirds mush and one-third liver or 

 meat has been used at many stations where the meat cost was an item to 

 consider. I believe one-third mush and two-thirds meat a better diet 

 and one that will produce stronger fish. The mush, as a rule, should 

 supply the bulk or filler. It is desirable to have some cai'bohydrates in 

 the diet of the fish. 



Me. Titcomb : This is a very valuable paper, but there is one feature 

 which Dr. Kendall does not appear to have covered. The shrimp reproduce 

 naturally in great abundance in lime water, but there are a great many 

 places where the trout are raised in which it is practically impossible to 

 raise shrimp. He referred to the Caledonia shrimp, which breeds naturally 

 in tremendous quantities in the State hatchery at Caledonia, New York, 

 and I have found it in several other places in great numbers. It is much 

 more abundant at certain seasons of the year. My experience is that 

 when trout feed exclusively or very largely upon shrimp, the result is a 

 very highly colored fish ; better outside color and pinker flesh. Mr. Kowe 

 has a natural pond at his hatchery in Maine which has produced these 

 pink-fleshed trout and highly colored eggs. At the Caledonia hatchery some 

 of the largest ponds have a gravel bottom and rather swift water in some 

 portions, with quite a little vegetation in spots, and there the shrimp 

 breed. The trout keep in splendid condition and have a very good color, 

 not the very pink, but a much better color than the average trout fed on 

 artificial food. I am referring to fish that weigh up to three or four 

 pounds. We attribute the fine condition and color entirely to the amount of 

 shrimp which they have obtained, in addition to the liver fed about once a 

 day. 



Mr. Leach : Mr. Titcomb raises the question as to the amount of flour 

 and carbohydrates that we are putting in our flsh food. We flnd the mush 

 cheaper than meat and believe it essential in that it supplies carbohydrates 

 found under natural conditions in streams. We have fed more in bulk of 

 the cheaper grades of shorts than of low grade flour. We require many 

 of our stations to make monthly reports of food used. One of our southern 

 bass stations was feeding 750 adult bass $30 worth of food a year ; another 

 station was feeding about 850 fish $225 worth of food in the same period. 

 Naturally there was a big difference in the output in favor of the station 

 that fed the greater amount of food. 



What Dr. Kendall says in regard to the feeding of shrimp would not 

 apply to some of our southern trout stations, such as at Wytheville, Va., 

 and White Sulphur Springs, W. Va. We cannot produce shrimp in paying 

 quantities in the limestone water there ; I refer to the Caledonia shrimp, 

 G. limnceus. I believe shrimp are only produced in limestone water in the 

 region of the glacial drifts, which seem to extend through our northern tier 

 of States and as far west as Wyoming and Utah. At Saratoga, Wye, 



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