58 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
[Special report of Messrs. Whitcher and Venning on fish-breeding at New Castle, Ontario. ] 
“We proceeded yesterday to New Castle, Ontario, in compliance with your direc- 
tions, and made a personal inspection of the fish-breeding establishment there under 
charge of Mr. Wilmot. The premises are situated on Baldwin or Wilmot Creek, a small 
stream traversing the township of Clarke, in the county of Durham, and discharging 
into Lake Ontario, about 40 miles east of Toronto. This creek is well situated for 
salmon, as it forms a natural inlet of the sheltered bend of the lake between Bend- 
head and Darlington. 
“Although at the entrance into the lake it passes through a marshy lagoon, the 
bed of the stream farther inland is of a gravelly nature and the water is pretty 
clear, regular, and lively in its flow. 
“In early times it was famous for salmon, great numbers of which frequented it 
every autumn for the purpose of spawning. They were so plentiful forty years ago 
that men killed them with clubs and pitchforks, women seined them with flannel 
petticoats, and settlers bought and paid for farms and built houses from the sale of 
salmon. Later they were taken by nets and spears, over 1,000 being often caught 
in the course of one night. 
“‘Coneurrently with such annual slaughter manufactories and farming along the 
banks had obstructed, fouled, and changed the creek from its natural state and made 
it less capable of affording shelter and spawning. 
“Their yearly decreasing numbers at length succumbed to the destruction prac- 
ticed upon them each season from the time of entering the creek until nearly the 
last straggler had been speared, netted, or killed.” 
The history of the salmon fisheries of Wilmot Creek, so graphically told by the 
Canadian commissioners, has been repeated in every stream of the State of New York 
which drains into Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. All were frequented 
by the salmon, and from each, each season, went out a numerous colony of parr and 
smolts, which descended the St. Lawrence to the gulf, where they remained until 
they had attained size and maturity, when, obeying the impulse of reproduction, they 
ascended the St. Lawrence and distributed themselves to all the tributaries of lake 
and river, carrying back to these inland waters the rich harvest of the sea which they 
had garnered. 
This magnificent fishery has ceased to be. Did it exist to-day, and were the con- 
ditions which made such a fishery possible prevailing to-day, a hundred streams now 
barren would afford salmon fishing as attractive as the more favored waters of Can- 
ada, and the catch by net in the lake itself would furnish the motive of a valuable 
commercial fishery. 
The cause of the disappearance, practically, of salmon from the streams of the St. 
Lawrence Basin has been chiefly and primarily the erection of obstructions in all of 
the rivers, which have prevented the salmon from reaching their spawning-grounds, 
and so natural reproduction has been absolutely inhibited. 
The restoration and maintenance of the whitefish fisheries of Lake Erie, or of the 
salmon fishery of the lake and rivers, would either of them furnish sufficient motive 
for liberal expenditures on the part of the Government, if we consider the matter 
from a purely practical and economic standpoint. It is not only possible, it is 
entirely practicable, to restore and maintain these fisheries, by adequate recourse to 
means and agencies entirely within our control. 
The regeneration of the fisheries must be accomplished through fish-cultural work, 
systematically and persistently pursued. Their maintenance must be assured by 
concurrent regulation of the lake fisheries by the United States and Canada and by 
the enforcement on the part of the State of New York of such regulations and require- 
ments as will permit the salmon to ascend to their spawning-grounds. In the absence 
of such regulations and requirements it will not be reasonable to expect that the 
results of fish-cultural work will be permanent or compensating, however extensive 
such work may be. 
