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4 
Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting 
superintendent of the Manchester Station actually tried an ex- 
periment which | attempted but failed in through not having 
my ponds in proper order. He placed his bass and fry when they 
rose from the bed, in nursery ponds of the size of about 75 x 20 
feet. They had not been in use and contained a great deal of 
natural food and the fry fed on this natural food in these nursery 
ponds until they were sufficiently large to take maggots. Then 
he suspended the maggot trays over the water and the little bass 
came up and assembled under the trays and took the maggots 
greedily. He does not know yet how many fish he has caught 
there, and that would be a very important point. At the St. 
Johnsbury Station there are a lot of nursery ponds much smaller 
than those mentioned, which had no fish in them, and when I 
was there I noticed that those ponds were filled with animal life 
early in the spring, if they were left empty of fish; and we 
wanted to try the same experiment there. There is a good idea 
in that, in getting your small mouth bass spread out to get food, 
and still have them under control. 
Mr. Meehan: We tried maggots with some success at the 
Wayne hatchery. At Torresdale we had ponds about 30 feet by 
15 feet. There was a large quantity of live food in those ponds 
and in addition to that the fish were fed with ground fish which 
they took very greedily, four times a day. But neither maggots 
nor natural food seem to have reduced cannibalism very much. 
We placed 14,000 fish in those ponds and at last accounts we had 
taken out 3,000, and there were left about 2,000. 
Mr. Clark: They talk about maggots on which to feed smal! 
fish, but they do not mean for feeding the fry just after they come 
off the nest. What has anybody tried as to feeding fry as they 
come off the nest ? 
Mr. Seymour Bower: You mean for feeding with artificial 
food ? 
Mr. Clark: Yes, or doing anything to increase the natural 
food—that is where we are weak. In this connection I might 
say that this season we put 10,000 fry directly from the nests 
into one pond at Northville, and counted 8,325 number two 
fingerhngs. 
