FRY VS. FINGERLINGS. 
By HERSCHEL WHITAKER Of Michigan. 
Much has been said and more has been written in the 
last two years regarding the desirability of planting fin- 
gerling trout as against the planting of fry, as a surer and 
more effective means of stocking the streams of the 
country. The idea, like all new ones, has found ready 
advocates who have taken up the cry, until it has come to 
be believed that there is real foundation for the claim, 
and that it is a mistake to pursue further efforts along the 
line of fry planting. To those who have had experience 
in fishculture and are familiar with the results of the work 
done for the past ten or fifteen years, [ think the claim 
of the fingerling advocates does not appeal very strongly, 
but with the unthinking ones it has met with more favor 
than it deserves or would have received upon a full and 
thorough investigation. 
In considering this question we cannot fly in the face 
. of past great success as the result of stocking waters with 
fry, neither can we disregard the fact that if plants are 
made of fish at a fry age we have attained the maximum 
of output ata minimum of cost. That the cost of raising 
fish to the fry age is cheap no one can deny, and that it 
has been eminently successful is beyond refutation. This 
being admitted let us recall for a moment past experience 
and see what has been done and what has resulted from 
fry plants. 
No stronger argument can perhaps be presented on this 
point than the remarkable success attending the restock- 
ing of the shad rivers of the Atlantic Coast, which have 
been restored from a point of great decay to a condition 
where the fishing is profitable. This is emphatically the 
case with some of our salmon rivers, and noticably the 
Penobscot where the run of the salmon had almost entirely 
failed. The papers devoted to angling and fishing inter- 
ests have shown that for the last three or four years, or 
