82 
As a practical workman, I wish to enter my negation to 
the doctrine advanced in this Association in the past of the 
very large percentage of loss unavoidable in raising fry to 
yearlings. One member last year said if you have good 
luck with 1,000,000 fry you may have 600,000 fish at the 
end of the year. In other words, a loss of 40 per cent., 
and another member placed the unavoidable loss at 50 to 
75 per cent. I prefer to look upon these statements as 
fancy born and not as the expressions of experience. 
Twenty-five years ago they might have held good. But 
to-day, with proper appliances and a proper understanding 
and knowledge of the work, a loss of 75, 50 or even 40 per 
cent. from fry to yearlings should be considered inexcus- 
able. (This be it understood to apply only to the product 
of such eggs as have not been subject to transportation. ) 
As touching this matter, I ask your attention to the fol- 
lowing quotation from Mr. Livingston Stone’s work, ‘‘Do- 
mesticated Trout’’ (third edition, page 190): ‘‘I must, 
nevertheless, venture to disagree with them if they mean 
that there is any necessary inherent cause of death in the 
young fry which cannot be removed. Some will die, say 
5 per cent., though it ought to be less than this, of weak 
constitutions. They are born into the world so weakly 
constituted that they cannot stand the wear and tear of 
life, and must die. JI admit there may be perhaps 5 per 
cent. of these necessary, unavoidable deaths ; but that the 
rest come into being already doomed to premature death, 
or that young trout have any mysterious or peculiar in- 
herent cause of death in them, any more than young calves, 
or pigs, or chickens, I do not believe. In the present state 
of information of the art, young trout fry may be more 
liable to accidents than other young domesticated crea- 
tures, and it may be more difficult to guard against their 
diseases, but thisisanotherthing. Careless breeding may, 
and careless hatching will, produce a progeny of young 
trout of which 90 per cent. will die; but this is also an- 
