TENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 35 
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I. 1741—The Discovery of the Art of Fish Culture—In the year 1741 
the art of fish culture was discovered by Stephan Ludwig Jacobi, a 
wealthy landed proprietor living at Hohenhausen, a small village in 
the duchy of Lippe, in Northwestern Germany. This discovery was 
not made public until 1763, thirty-eight years after the time when Ja- 
cobi, a youth of seventeen years, first conceived the idea of artificially 
fertilizing the eggs of fish for the purpose of restocking ponds and 
streams, and began a series of painstaking experiments. 
There is so much of interest in these early efforts at fish-breeding, 
that 1 shall not hesitate to speak of them somewhat at length, quoting 
pfreely froma paper recently published by my friend, Dr. Ludwig Hapke 
of Bremen, who has taken the pains to visit the home ef Jacobi, and 
to correct many errors concerning the worker and his work, which 
may be found in all the writings hitherto published on the subject of 
fish culture. 
Stephan Ludwig Jacobi was born April 28th, 1709, upon his ancestral 
estate of Hohenhausen, in the province of Varenholz. After a few 
years of study, under a private tutor, he was sent to the Gymnasia of 
Lemgo, Detmold and Hamburg. In 1734 he entered the University of 
Marburg, where he spent four years in the study of jurisprudence, 
philosophy and mathematics. In 1738 he turned his attention to agri- 
culture, and, in 1741, after his marriage, he assumed the management 
of the estate which he had inherited from his father. In 1745 he was 
appointed “Landlieutenant,” or Lieutenant of Militia. He was not, 
however, a military man, though he is spoken of as an army officer in 
all works on fish culture. Like many of the leading landed proprie- 
tors of Germany, he engaged in various enterprises not strictly agri- 
cultural, though properly pertaining to his functions as landlord. The 
village of Hohenhausen, which was located upon his estate, was a pros- 
perous settlement of about one thousand inhabitants. 
Among the industries in which he was engaged was the management 
of a flour-mill, a vinegar factory and a factory for the fabrication of 
starch from potatoes. He was also employed in public service, hav- 
ing been chosen superintendent of the work of building a canal from 
Schottmar to Uffeln, an enterprise by which numerous meadows and 
swamps were reclaimed from the water, and which was also of impor- 
tance in the years of destitution (1771 and 1772) in providing work and 
food for many hundreds of suffering peasants. He was, however, par- 
ticularly devoted to the culture of fruit and of fish, and is said to have 
employed successfully for many years a system of rotation of crops. 
Certain extensive tracts upon his estate he was accustomed to devote 
for a certain period to fruit-growing, then, by overflowing, to give 
