152 Thirty-mnth Annual Meeting 



of carp is doing for the commercial fishermen it would be 

 impossible to form any idea of its real value from a com- 

 mercial standard. Statistics will, I think, show nearly or 

 quite 22,000,000 pounds of carp taken from the Illinois river 

 and the lowlands adjacent to it during the season of 1908, 

 and the majority of these fish were taken from the flat lakes, 

 ponds and bays tributary to the Illinois river. 



One might ask what progress has been made in the 

 increase of the fish indigenous to our Illinois waters in the 

 last twenty years that can not be traced indirectly to the carp. 

 We have more bass and the reason is because we have more 

 food for them by reason of the vast reproductivity of the 

 carp. 



In predicating the possibilities of the future of the carp, 

 several phases must be considered. What has been the great- 

 est food producer, and incidentally the money maker of the 

 waters ? Not the bass, nor the buffalo, once the great coarse 

 fish supply of the Illinois river valley, but the carp. And 

 why? First, because of its adaptability to all the waters of 

 the State, with their varied conditions. Then because of its 

 wonderful reproductive powers; its tenacity of life, which 

 gives it a commercial value not possessed by any other fish ; 

 and finally, its real value as a table fish when properly taken 

 and properly prepared. 



We find carp everywhere and everywhere prospering. 

 Other fish are killed out by adverse seasons but the same 

 conditions do not fatally affect the carp. Every energy and 

 all the ingenuity of man are exercised to take these fish, and 

 if laws are lax all is to the detriment of the carp, vet thev are 

 continually on the increase. When sent to the markets they 

 are always shipped "round," that is, not dressed, and I am 

 told that they arrive at distant markets, if not alive, at least 

 in such firm and perfect condition, when properly packed, as 

 to meet the requirements of those great consumers of fish 

 who insist that the blood must show when they are cut. 



So much for the present status of the carp as a commercial 

 asset (»f the people of the Illinois and Mississippi Valleys, 



