26 FISH CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
We have distributed agood many salmon, and never have heard of 
any of them after they were one year old, except one that floated 
ashore in Cayuga Lake, weighing three pounds. We have some 
California salmon at our state works that are four years ‘old; 
the females weigh one and one-half pounds, and the males three- 
quarters of a pound. They stopped growing when they were 
three years old. Of the Kennebec salmon, the females of the 
same age weigh two and one-half pounds, and the males one and 
one-half pounds. 
There are various opinions as to the time spawn can be taken 
and left in a pan before the milt is put on them. I think I have 
heard parties say that they had put the milt on the eggs an hour 
or more after the spawn was taken, and impregnated a fair per- 
centage. I have experimented, but it was so long ago that I had 
forgotten, and I could not find any minutes. This winter I had 
my brother make the experiment. He took fifty brook-trout 
spawn in a pan, and in five minutes, exact time, he put the milt on 
them. Then he tried fifty more, and left them ten minutes; fifty 
more, and left them fifteen minutes; fifty more, and left twenty 
minutes; fifty more, and left twenty-five minutes, and so on up to 
forty-five minutes. After thirty days we could tell what portion 
of the spawn was impregnated, We found of the first fifty only 
two impregnated, and not one impregnated after five minutes. 
My opinion is that when the spawn is taken from the fish, the 
sooner the milt is put on the better is the impregnation, and the 
more carefully they are handled the better. I have seen parties 
handle fish-spawn as though they were peas, and claim that they 
hatched a fair percentage. My experience has been such that I 
cannot believe it, and I think it wrong to have such publications 
go before the community as facts. 
The meeting then adjourned until 11 a. M. the next day. 
