84 
cent. My own experience with healthy eggs and fry is 
that the loss should not reach 10 per cent. These figures 
are not guesses. They are founded on actual counts. My _ 
method is this: In the spring, about or a little before the 
average time of planting fry, our young trout are trans- 
ferred from the hatching troughs to the outdoor pools. 
We commence by taking out 500 of the most advanced fry 
and putting them into a pool by themselves. No other fry 
are added to them until they have been taught to readily 
congregate in the pool for their food. This training occu- 
pies two, three, four or five days, depending upon the fish 
and the condition of the weather. When they are thor- 
oughly trained in this, a thousand more fry are added. 
It is expected, and rarely fails, that the 500 trained fish 
teach the 1,000 new fish to assemble at feeding times. Day 
by day we add fry in lots of 1,000 until the pool receives 
its quota. Now, the test of the whole matter comes in the 
succeeding fall, when the messenger brings his orders for 
so many yearling fish. Let us suppose his order calls for 
5,830 fish. Then, that is just the number which we give 
him. But how? As a shipment of fry was formerly de- 
termined by counting a pan of 500 and estimating the bal- 
ance? By no means. The fish are counted. At the Neo- 
sho Station three men ordinarily require less than two 
hours from start to finish in counting and loading an aver- 
age carload of yearlings. The captain of the car is at 
liberty to supervise and check the count. At its comple- 
tion he gives a receipt forthe number of fish. This receipt 
is subject to a check in that the messenger must obtain a 
receipt or receipts from the final recipient or recipients of 
the fish for the like number, or stand the onus of having 
lost the fish in transit. The total of the receipts given by 
the messengers, subtracted from the total of the fry counted 
into the pools, represents the loss in raising from fry to 
yearlings. A little while back I made the statement that 
this loss need not exceed 10 per cent. Let us see what 
eh i de. 
