159 
Should we stand with folded hands, and see this denizen 
of these great lakes pass into the records of the U. 8. Fish 
Commission, while the coming generation shall say, That 
was an age that consumed, but did not produce. 
SALE OF DOMESTICATED’ FISH. 
BY We) He PAG. 
If the subject on which I now address you needs apology 
it may be found in the first Article of the Constitution of 
this Society. Therein it is stated among other things that 
the object of this Society is ‘‘ to promote the cause of fish- 
culture, and the uniting and encouraging of the interests 
of fishculture.”’ 
During the past three years, my attention has been 
several times called, more forcibly than ever before, to the 
harassing restrictions placed by several of the States upon 
fishculture when conducted as a private enterprise. I 
have reference to the clause existing in the laws of several 
States prohibiting the sale of artificially reared fish within 
the close season prescribed for the protection of wild fish. 
In the framing of many of the protection laws of the 
States it would seem that folly had joined hands with 
wisdom. For these protective laws were in themselves the 
direct outgrowth of the repeated earnest recommendation 
and solicitation of fishculturists. It cannot be believed 
that it was any part of the intention of the solicitors 
that laws should be enacted or so constructed as to harass, 
hamper and strangle fishculture. It is unreasonable that 
any State fostering fishculture at State expense in main- 
taining hatcheries under the plea of furnishing its citizens 
