American Fisheries Society. 95 
the words of an excellent angler, the late Myron W. Reed of 
Denver, “This is the last generation of trout-fishers. The 
ehildren will not be able to find any. Not that brook trout will 
cease to be. They will be hatched by machinery and raised in 
ponds and fattened on chopped liver, and grow flabby and lose 
their spots. The trout of the restaurant will not cease to be. 
He is no more like the trout of the wild river than the fat and 
songless reed bird is like the bobolink. Gross feeding and easy 
pond life enervate and deprave him. The trout that the children 
will know only by legend is the gold-sprinkled, living arrow 
of the white water; able to zigzag up the cataract; able to loiter 
in the rapids; whose dainty meat is the glancing butterfly.” 
DISCUSSION. 
During the reading of his paper Mr. Whish said: The 
pulp mills use lime and sulphuric acid, and 1 do not know of 
any two substances, either alone or in combination, which will 
kill anything that is alive, quicker than those two. 
We have taken tons of suckers and fish of that kind out of 
our lakes every vear. We give them to the farmers for fertilizers. 
In my judgment, the United States Commission can more 
profitably employ a lot of high priced scientists in the solution 
of this problem of parasitic disease of fishes, which means the 
preservation of an important and desirable supply of food, than 
in giving their attention to chasing butterflies and naming 
prize snakes of various kinds. 
(Laughter and applause.) 
Secretary Peabody: Mr. Whish has thrown a little slur 
on the modest sucker, as being a spawn eater and destroving 
trout. I would hke to learn from some of these fish culturists 
what they know about the influence of suckers in ponds and 
streams where trout have thriven for centuries. I know of one 
little pond about the size of this room, at the sources of a brook 
in Wisconsin, and in its deep quiet pools the bottom seems 
solidly massed with suckers. It has a peculiar quality of water, 
with a peculiar sort of grass in it, suspended below the surface 
of the water; and if you cast a fly or minnow in the water, trout 
from 12 to 15 inches long will dart from under this growth just 
