CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME. 



71 



100,000 fish are retained in the fifty rearing ponds as breeders. Ten 

 to thirty million trout and salmon are hatched and reared at the station 

 each year. 



MILL CREEK AND BATTLE CREEK HATCHERIES. 



The work of collecting salmon eggs has been systematically carried 

 on by the joint operations of the federal and state commissions, with 

 the object of increasing the number of salmon in the Sacramento River. 

 Two hatcheries have been estal^lished for the work, one at Battle Creek, 

 in 1895, by the state commis.sion ; the other at Mill Creek, in 1902, by 

 the federal commission. 



Fig. 36. The first salmou-ci.;g i ullii iihl; ^iLniun on Battle Creek in 1905. In the 

 first year of operation the take amounted to ten million salmon eggs. 



The Battle Creek Hatchery has proved to be one of the greatest 

 salmon-spawning stations in the world, as many as 60,000,000 eggs hav- 

 ing been taken in one year. It was largely due to the efforts of Mr. 

 John P. Babcock that this fine station was located. He had taken a 

 keen interest in the propagation of salmon and recommended this site 

 to the California Fish Commission. Battle Creek is one of the large 

 tributaries of the upper Sacramento River ; it rises in the watershed of 

 Mount Lassen and flows into the Sacramento River about twenty miles 

 north of Red Bluff. There is a lagoon two and a half miles long at its 

 mouth, in which the fall-run salmon gather in thousands. The Cali- 

 fornia Fish Commission operated this station for two years, but owing 

 to a lack of funds, and desiring to see the station operated to its fullest 

 capacity, a proposition was made by the state commission to Hon. J. J. 

 Brice, then United States Connuissioner of Fisheries, to purchase the 

 plant for a government station, the money thus obtained to be applied 



