Bullock. — Problems in Bass Culture 137 



is being done and what results have been obtained. The 

 question of foods and feeding is a very important one; it has 

 a direct bearing upon the health of the fishes in the hatcher- 

 ies; if we do not give them properly balanced food, there is 

 bound to be trouble sooner or later. It will be very interest- 

 ing, therefore, to know what the practical men in the various 

 hatcheries of the country are using as food and what success 

 they are having in that direction. Mr. Titcomb, will you 

 lead the discussion on this subject? 



FOODS AND FEEDING OF FISHES. 



Mr. Titcomb: The suggestion that this matter be discussed was 

 the result of a conference among- a number of fish culturists, and arose 

 partly out of a conversation concerning our vainous difficulties and 

 experiences. It would seem to be worth while that each of the practical 

 men here who is engaged in fish cultural work should recount very 

 briefly just what species of fish he is rearing what experiments he has 

 tried what the results were, and what he is doing to-day as a result of 

 his past experience. It was my idea that every man here who is engaged 

 in that work could get up and briefly answer these questions. 



I must confess that in this connection we have not done very much 

 in Connecticut at the present time. We are, however, building up our 

 work very rapidly. We are raising all our trout to at least three inches 

 before distributing them. We had no hatcheiy where we could raise 

 fingerlings. We have no large sources of water supply, so that in 

 view of these conditions we are putting in what we call field stations or 

 rearing stations, which are nothing more or less than a battery of 

 hatching troughs set up as close as possible to the source of water 

 supply. There are no flowers; there is no green grass growing round — 

 just a feeding plant. We transfer the fry from the two hatcheries we 

 now have to these troughs and there feed them until they are at least 

 three inches long; then we distribute them until the last of them are 

 about five inches long. There are some advantages in that method: 

 we can keep the troughs perfectly clean; if our water supply turns out 

 bad or if we have any disease we can put the whole plant on a truck 

 and move it somewhere else. The largest one of these rearing plants 

 has eighty-six troughs. We are feeding principally beef livei*. We 

 have fed shrimp with the liver this summer; we fed clabbered milk to 

 some extent also in the case of the trout. I am not yet prepared to 

 give the results of those experiments because this is our first season in 

 the testing of that variety of food. We now have three of these field 

 stations running and we are going to put up some more as rapidly as we 

 find suitable water supplies. 



I cannot contribute much on feed because you all have fed the 

 beef liver. I prefer it to the livei's of other animals, but I know that 

 the cost is a little more. One other species of fish that we are attempt- 



