American Fisheries Society 109 



west coast of the United States with the striped bass, which lias 

 l)een })re-eminently successful. That was done with small mem- 

 bers of the striped bass family, caught in the eastern waters by 

 nets and otherwise, and shipped across the country. As far as 

 1 know that is the only stocking in those waters that has taken 

 place. The cost of fry is a different thing to measure. The cost 

 of the fry at the station on the Roanoke river, ISTorth Carolina, 

 run by the United States government, has amounted for several 

 years together now to something like $300 per million. The cost 

 has l)een that high for the reason that I have had too many 

 fishermen on my payrolls and too many fishermen out of the 

 river drawing salaries as spawn takers and not in fishing. It 

 is my opinion that those striped bass eggs can be produced in 

 Xorth Carolina at a smaller cost than what I have given. For 

 many years the cost of shad fry from the hatcheries of the 

 United States was about $70 to $75 per million. I do not know 

 liow it is of late, but the using of fry for stocking purposes is 

 certainly a ])ractical thing today. Fry are easily moved, easily 

 put in small ponds, keep well and grow fast. 



Mr. John AV. Titcomh, Washington, D. C. : The striped bass 

 problem seems to l)e a good deal like the Atlantic salmon ])rob- 

 leni (111 our coast. It seems to me that the fishery all along tlu' 

 coast is going down every year. As I understand it. these 

 streams in which Mr. Fearing is interested, are already natural 

 streams for striped bass, and inhabited by them, so that it is 

 merely a question of introducing a small number, as when the 

 striju'd bass were carried to the Pacific coast. It appears that 

 there is no hope for the striped bass on the Atlantic coast in the 

 I'liture unless we can liave uniform state regulation, or what 

 would naturally follow that, federal control, which will regu- 

 late the fishing for the striped bass in the liays where the water 

 is salt or brackish, and where the fish are taken in large numbers 

 before they can leave the spawning bed. It is the same problem 

 which we are facing now in the preservation of the shad, which 

 have disappeared practically from the rivers of the nortli. and 

 are gradually disappearing from the Delaware where Mr. Mee- 

 han wants to introduce the salmon, and in the other rivers fur- 

 ther south, and where we have only one instance of improvement, 

 that is, in Albermarle Sound, where the state has adopted regu- 



