108 
butchers. That ended it in a fewyears. Then not a fish 
was caught or seen in the river until a few years ago. 
We planted salmon fry at the very headwaters of the 
river. We planted them for the reason that the railroad 
crossed the head of the river and brought up the young 
fry from the hatchery; and that was their natural place; 
their instincts led them there to hatch their young, which 
takes about five months. They plow furrows in the 
gravel and cover them over. and the water filters slowly 
through the gravel, and produces the continuous slow 
change, and the current carries away the autumn leaves 
so that the eggs will not smother. They also go there 
to get away from the abundance of the natural enemies 
of their young. This river I refer to, is now full of sal- 
mon. It is the only river in Nova Scotia that I know 
of, and I am familiar with all the practical results of 
planting fry, and I attribute the success to the reason 
that the fry are planted where they belong. In the 
other rivers, they are mostly all planted down at the lower 
portions of the rivers. These facts cannot be disputed. 
I communicated them to Professor Goode. 
The other fact is just this: We are in the habit of 
catching five or six hundred salmon in the early weeks in 
June and inclosing them in an inclosure and keeping 
them until October. We have tried to induce them to 
take food, but they won’t touch any sort of solid food. 
They are there for five months. In October they have 
rather gained in weight than lost. What did they feed 
on? They took no solid food. May it not be that they 
get their food out of the water? This would be for 
scientists to determine. I have thought that the water 
comes down over the watersheds in the spring months, 
richly freighted with that vegetable property which the 
bird gets in the bud and the wild animal gets in the bark 
and you and I get in the grain. This is their sustenance, 
they get it in liquid form. It is certain they eat nothing. 
May it not be possible that the fry feed on the same? 
