68 
where there is no food, but which can be put there arti- 
ficially ; and plenty of springs and streams where there is. 
no food but which can be cultivated there; for every- 
thing has been cleaned out, in cleaning up the landscape,. 
and the grounds the streams have been cleaned out; 
they are all cleaned, there is nothing left in them. But 
you don’t want to pay much attention to the appearance 
of the stream; if it is choked up and full of weeds, all the 
better; let them grow, then the trout will grow. You 
can make hundreds of trout streams where you haven't 
any now and where you haven't any trout because there 
is no food. 
Mr. Matuer—I fear I did not make myself exactly 
clear on this question. I agree with Mr. Fairbanks on 
this natural food business to a certain extent. But in 
his ponds, he cannot put in more than a certain number 
than that will support. At the station of the New York 
Fish Commission which is in my charge at Cold Spring 
Harbor, I have one reservoir away up the hill, where we 
grow watercress, and the water flows down into another 
one which supplies the hatchery. This lower one is 
between three and four hundred feet long and from 
thirty to fifty feet wide. We have put in as high as. 
15,000 fry there and we have put in as low as 8,000, every 
year; and the highest we have ever taken out of it I 
think was 5,000. In the fall we usually draw it down, in 
September, and get out everything that we can, and we 
have from one to five thousand trout that are grown 
upon natural food which has not cost usa cent. But if 
we should attempt in that water to carry it on ona 
larger scale, and put a 100,000 fry in there, it is a ques- 
tion whether we would take out any or not. | 
Mr. FarrsAnKS—In this lower pond is there water- 
cress? 
Mr. MatTHER—No, not much. There is no cress in 
it, but there are other plants, and it is full of natural 
food; but we get a few fish that have not cost us any- 
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