Foods and Feeding of Fishes 149 



get by planting- in October. There is a variation in the size of the 

 bluegills on account of the early and late spawning. 



Mr. Hart: Is the butter fat taken out of the milk before it is 

 soured? 



Mr. Buller: Oh yes, it is skim milk. We have milk separating 

 stations in close proximity to the plant from which we can buy all we 

 want. We are paying twenty-five cents for a forty quart can of that 

 milk, so it is a rather economical food. 



Mr. Fleming: In your small ponds which, as you say, have a capa- 

 city of from 80,000 to 800,000, what growth do your bluegills take on 

 the first season? 



Mr. Buller: Sometimes they will be an inch and a quarter long, 

 and sometimes not more than half an inch. That is why, when this 

 plan is completed, these fish will be held over next year so that we shall 

 have bluegills which are two, three and four inches long. 



Mr. Flehiing: I am raising bluegills, and I use no artificial food 

 whatever. In one of our ponds which is about the size you speak of, the 

 fish are as small as three-quarters of an inch, and I was wondering 

 whether artificial feeding produced better growth, or whether it did not. 

 Mr. Buller: We have to feed in our ponds; we would not have any- 

 thing if we did not. 



Mr. Woods: Did you ever try it without feeding? 

 Mr. Buller: Yes. 



Mr. Foster: Did you ever try feeding clabbered milk in a skimmer 

 — just shake it in the water? 



Mr. Buller : Yes, but that is too slow a process. 

 Mr. Foster : We found that we fed the fish on the milk they did 

 just about as well as when fed on beef hearts and sheeps liver. Those 

 fed on beef hearts went a little ahead of those fed on the sheep liver 

 and milk, and those given two feeds of milk with three feeds of beef 

 hearts did as well as any. 



Mr. Buller: We advocate the use of milk. We find it keeps our 

 fish in a healthy condition, fed in conjunction with some concentrated 

 meat foods. 



Mr. Titcomb: You separate the young of this year from your 

 adults this fall; you put the young in a pond by themselves? 

 Mr. Buller: For shipping. 



Mr. Adams: Are you doing anything now with the channel cat 

 or any of the catfishes other than the horn pout? 



Mr. Buller: I did have some channel cat, but we could not get 

 them to feed ; they M'^ould not take live food or anything else, with the 

 i-esult that fish which were a foot long when we got them were about 

 like my finger when we released them. We could not get them to feed 

 in the aquaria, either, I do not know why. 



Mr. Titcomb: Let us hear from Mr. Hayford. 



Mr. Hayford: In the course of five years we did a great many 

 things in regard to the rearing of bass, and the results were somewhat 



