Foods and Feeding of Fishes 151 



enough, we do not disturb these two stock ponds very much ; we 

 let the water take its natural course around through the chain. 



We have reached the point now where we have less trouble in 

 feeding the small mouth than we have with the large mouth. The 

 small mouth bass take the food more readily and become tame more 

 quickly. But we do have less trouble in the reproduction of the large 

 mouth than we have with the small mouth; therefore, each one seems to 

 have its own trouble. I find I can do much better with the small 

 mouth bass, under our conditions in New Jersey, in small ponds about 

 one-third of an acre, while with large mouth I can do better if I put 

 them into ponds from two to three acres and let them come up to a 

 point where they are, say, two and a half inches long. Then we draw 

 the pond off and grade the bass according to size, whereupon they are 

 put into smaller ponds that have the weeds in them. 



Mr. Titcomb: Do you feed the large mouth? 



Mb. Hayford: Yes, we feed the large mouth too. We have always 

 worked on the plan of using the sm.all minnow. We have one pond 

 there now that contains probably 2,000 large mouth bass fingerlings 

 from four to four and a half inches long, and we are able to get enough 

 small minnows to meet their needs. Last year we had some small 

 mouth bass in this pond, and I can see no difference so far as growth, 

 etc., is concerned. We expect to build from twelve to fifteen ponds 

 from time to time as we need them and as funds permit, to raise forage. 

 We believe, from experiments, that we are going to get a great deal in 

 the way of results from raising small goldfish, and it might be that we 

 could raise small carp ; in fact, I think each one has to work out his own 

 problems; conditions respecting water, and so on, are so different iti 

 different places. When I first started, if I could get from 500 to 1,000 

 bass to grow, I felt pretty big. That result, however, is no longer satis- 

 factory; in three different ponds this year we were able to get out from 

 16,000 to 24,000 per acre of fingerlings from two to four inches long. 

 We have four large ponds there, and we always have had three experi- 

 mental ponds. 



Our department is only building as fast as we can show results. 

 We have been getting results from the reservoirs. This spring we took 

 out quite a few fry from the reservoirs as they came to the surface — 

 helpless, you might say — and transferred them into inexpensive ponds 

 which contained myriads of Daphnia. These bass grew very rapidly up 

 to an inch; of course, we could not go further than that, because we 

 had others in the ponds that we had put our breeders in. I may say 

 that in one pond where we had approximately 20,000 small mouth No.l 

 fingerlings, the fish became badly affected by fungus. The first signs 

 were spots here and there around the head; it was what we termed 

 "pin point" fungus — a little spot here and there which gradually merged 

 into one large spot. Thei'efore I think we have to be careful in bring- 

 ing the small fish in from the reservoirs. These fish were brought in at 

 night, and I asked the fellow who brought them in whether he noticed 



