144 Thirty-ninth Annual Meeting 



conclusion that the very clear water of San Marcos station 

 was not suited to the fish. It must be that this clearness 

 atTected the eye. So I planted the remainder of the fish in 

 my carp pond, which the carp kept muddy at all times. This 

 proved the remedy, the fish beginning to improve and thrive 

 at once, and when the pond was drawn in the winter I found 

 8 splendid specimens of crappie. 



This led me during the next season to the following experi- 

 ment. I wired off the narrow part of one of my ponds with 

 one-inch galvanized chicken fencing, the inlet to this pond 

 leading direct into the part wired off, and in this portion of 

 the pond I placed 8 large carp, each weighing from 6 to 8 

 pounds. The eft'ect was that the carp kept the pond at all 

 times slightly muddy and the crappie placed in this pond had 

 no pop-eye and produced quite a crop of young. I also noted 

 that there were no young carp, showing that the crappie. 

 both young and old, had fed on the young carp. 



The results of this experiment led me to obtain from some 

 of the nearby ranch owners the privilege of stocking their 

 cattle tanks with crappie, allowing me to have a part of the 

 young fish. These tanks are always slightly muddy and the 

 result from these ponds or tanks, while not very large, has 

 enabled San Marcos station to plant several thousand young 

 crappie each year. 



I also find it worse than useless to handle young crappie 

 in this climate until the cool weather of winter sets in and 

 hardens them. They will not stand handling and icing like 

 I )ther fish during the summer, the slightest change in tempera- 

 ture or water affecting them and producing that desperate 

 disease fungus, to which this fish, more than any other I 

 have ever handled, is liable. For roily or muddy ponds the 

 crappie, or white perch, as it is known in Texas, is the very 

 best fish, thriving as no other fish will, and it is of the very 

 best of our fresh-water kinds. 



Now for the catfish. I have tried to propagate both the 

 s])otted catfish (Ictaliints punctatits) and the blue channel 

 catfish {Ictaliints fitrcafiis) for the past four years and have 



