Downing. — Whitefish in Lake Erie. 63 



of Fisheries operated the balance of the original area, and 

 the total collection by both was 2,917,350,000 or an average 

 of 583,470,000 each year; showing an average annual in- 

 crease of 155,522,000 eggs over the collections of the six 

 years immediately preceeding, and a yearly increase of 358, 

 972,000 over the first twelve years considered, or more than 

 two and one half times as many from the same area. 



Now as this is an assembly of persons more or less in- 

 terested in fish, and fish culture and the method used in the 

 work, it is taken for granted that most of you here are 

 familiar with our work up on the Great Lakes, but for the 

 benefit of those who are not, I will say: 



Our entire work is strictly that of conservation, as we 

 neither catch or destroy any of the fish from which we secure 

 our stock of eggs for propagation. On the contrary all the 

 eggs of all the species propagated by us are taken from the 

 fish caught for market by the commercial fishermen and 

 would have gone to market with the fish and been a total 

 loss to production had not we secured them for propagation. 

 Now as we secure our stock of eggs from the fish caught by 

 these commercial fishermen, it goes without saying that the 

 supply of eggs naturally must correspond to the number of 

 fish taken by these commercial fishermen, and therefore if 

 the number of eggs secured by us has steadily increased dur- 

 ing all these years there must have been a like increase in the 

 number of fish caught, which we think will conclusively 

 prove to you that our assertion that we are maintaining the 

 number of whitefish in Lake Erie, is true. 



Now this may seem to be a very short paper, and it is, 

 considering the importance of the industry under considera- 

 tion, and I will therefore touch upon another phrase or angle 

 of the subject, not so much with an idea of proving any thing 

 as to introduce the matter for discussion. 



From the year 1900 to within a few years since, the 

 Monroe, Michigan, field, the most westerly of all our sta- 

 tions, was very productive, producing the great number of 

 306,000,000 of eggs in the yearl913, but since that time the 

 collection at that point has gradually dropped off until since 

 the year 1919 we have not been able to secure any eggs at 

 all, and the take of fish by the commercial fishermen has de- 

 clined to such an extent that some of the firms operating in 

 this vicinity have purchased no new nets to replace those 

 worn out, believing that the fishing on these grounds has be- 

 come permanently ruined. 



While the conditions at Toledo, another of the fields at 

 the extreme west end of the lake, are not quite so bad, the 

 catches of fish, and consequently the take of eggs, has ma- 



