138 Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting 
that because a thing comes from Europe it is just a little better 
than anything that grows in America. I was not brought up in 
any such behef and I do not believe it now. 
We had in bird life the English sparrow. I remember when 
I was a student in the high school, a prize was given to the scholar 
who would write the best essay on the beauties of the English 
sparrow which was then being introduced. I have been some- 
what of a fisherman ever since | was a little farmer boy with 
ragged trousers and could get a pin and a piece of string; and I 
remember when eminent scientific gentlemen threw up their 
hands and cheered at the discovery of the great carp. I have 
sat in societies and heard gentlemen of eminence confess—I may 
say also, confess very carefully—that the introduction of the carp 
was a fish-cultural tragedy, and I am hearing the successors of 
these scientific gentlemen confessing very cautiously that the 
introduction of the noble brown trout is the same thing. 
Now this is to me a matter of great glee. (Laughter.) I am 
a lay brother and I do not know any more science than I have 
read and I do not know much more science in the fish-cultural 
line than what I have been taught. But I was told a year or so 
ago, very cautiously, by a gentlemen of the United States Bureau, 
that they guessed they would not cultivate any more brown trout. 
Now, why don’t these scientific men know these things before 
it is too late? 
Our birds have suffered from the introduction of the beauti- 
ful sparrow. 
President: You don’t want a man to know it all at once, 
do you? 
Mr. Whish: It would have been for the best interests of the 
people at large if some of these things had been known before- 
hand. That is only my judgment. I hope these things are en- 
tertaining to the scientific men. 
But here is your carp question: Would it not have been 
better if they had found out where these fish were suited to go 
before they put them into the waters of the country? And would 
not the same thing have been better with relation to the brown 
trout ? 
Of what worth is your scientific man if he cannot give proper 
