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American Fisheries Society. 61 
y 
provement was expected this season. But the contrary is the 
case.” 
Why, gentlemen, what would you thing of a farmer, who, 
after carefully attending to his cows all winter, giving them the 
best of care, when those cows had their young would turn the 
young out in barren pastures without food, shelter or water; or 
the poultryman who watches his incubator through the twenty- 
one days of incubation, after the young were hatched would 
turn them out to be a prey for hawks, weasels and all other 
enemies of bird life. You would say that the dairyman and 
poultrvman were crazy. Well, just as crazy things are done 
in the protection of our fish. The fish culturist selects with care 
his breeders and after fertilizing the eggs, watches them during 
the period of time required to hatch, feeds them carefully until 
the time comes to plant, when they are turned over to the man 
who distributes, either in a car used for that purpose or in cans. 
If intended for the Great Lakes, they are placed on a boat run- 
ning from eight to sixteen miles an hour, dumped from the gang- 
way without any regard to whether the water in that part of the 
lake is suitable or not. If for the inland lakes, they are taken 
to the nearest place on the lake from the railroad station and 
there deposited, regardless—the only condition that there is 
water. 
Why, gentlemen, I have seen twenty cans of pike-perch or 
wall-eyed pike fry, which were sent by the United States govern- 
ment to a lake in our state, met at the depot by a committee, 
who with team took them to the lake, only about one-half mile 
from the village. Instead of taking the fry out in the lake, they 
dumped the whole twenty cans in a creek that runs under the 
road which divides the two lakes, where the fry was intended for. 
That creek was filled with shiner and chub minnows, and the 
way those minnows went after that pike fry was lke a hungry 
tramp after a pie—‘the kind that mother used to make.” I 
don’t believe that in one hour there were 1,000 fry left of those 
twenty cans. ‘The committee who met those fish ought to have 
had instructions where to plant them and how to plant them. 
This is not an isolated case, and I have no doubt that the mem- 
bers here present who are engaged in the work have experiences 
