396 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
PROTECTION AND CULTIVATION OF FISH. 
As in the other States bordering the Gulf of Mexico, little attention 
has been given to the cultivation and preservation of fish in Texas, and 
this special branch of legislation seems to have been quite ignored in 
the State until 1879. On April 17 of that year a bill was enacted “ for 
the preservation of fish and to build fishways and fish-ladders.” This 
act required that all persons who six months after its passage might 
erect any milldams or other obstructions in the waters of the State 
should construct fish-ladders and keep them in repair so that at all 
seasons of the year the fish might ascend above such obstructions to 
deposit their spawn. Further provision was made in this act for the 
appointment by the governor of a fish commissioner to serve without 
compensation, who should see that all individuals and corporations 
constructed and kept in repair such suitable fishways. As no appro- 
priation went with this enactment, either to encourage fish-culture or 
to compensate the commissioner, little benefit could be expected. 
During the next session of the legislature, which occurred in 1881, 
another enactment was made providing a salary for the commissioner 
and appropriating $5,000 annually for the following two years, to be 
expended in the cultivation and distribution of fish in the rivers and 
ponds of the State. The amount appropriated for this purpose for the 
two years following the session of the legislature in 1883 was $10,400. 
By act of March 20, 1885, the office of State fish commissioner was 
abolished, and an appropriation was made during the same session for 
winding up the affairs of his office. Since that time the State govern- 
ment has made no special effort to stock the waters with fish. 
Shortly prior to and during the few years following the enactment of 
1881 numbers of young shad, salmon, rainbow trout, carp, etc., were 
planted, chiefly for experimental purposes, in Texas waters by the 
U.S. Fish Commission. The shad were placed mostly in the Sabine, Col- 
orado, Brazos, San Antonio, and Trinity rivers. But few instances have 
been reported of the return of any of the shad here planted. The few 
California salmon deposited seem to have entirely disappeared. The 
rainbow trout are reported as having done well. The carp-planting has 
been a complete success; the rivers, being mainly sluggish and muddy, 
seem to be fully adapted to this fish. 
In the spring of 1890, 745 lobsters, from 7 to 10 inches long, were sent 
to Galveston by the U. S. Fish Commission to be planted in the Gulf 
near that city; while it is reported that two or three of these have since 
been obtained, the experiment can not be considered a success. 
The stocking of the streams in Texas with fish is a subject of much 
importance, of which fact the General Government has recently shown 
its appreciation by providing for the establishment of a hatchery in the 
interior of the State. With much of her territory far removed from 
salt water, and with a length of river course probably greater than 
that of any other State in the Union, superior inducements are offered 
for the cultivation of fresh-water fish. 
