FISH CULTURE IN CANADA. 



By Professor E. E. Prince, Dominion Commissioner of 

 Fisheries, Ottawa, President of the Society. 



(Read March 23rd, 1900) 



Fish-culture, is, at once, one of the most ancient and one of 

 the most modern of human pursuits. It is one of the most ancient, 

 for the Chinese at a time so remote that it cannot be determined, 

 are known to have reared fish, not only as quaint ornamental 

 pets, but for use at table; and we know that the Greeks and 

 Romans fully appreciated the utility of the artifical culture of 

 fish. Lucullian feasts would have been impossible, but for the 

 fish-pond's ample supplies. The ancients, sa5rs one authority, 

 ' 'were not satisfied with stocking fish-ponds which they had con- 

 structed for the purpose, but carried their foresight to the point 

 of filling lakes, formed b}^ nature, ,with the spawn of fish which 

 they threw into them." (Colum.ella, De Re Rustica Bk. viii.. 

 Sec. 16). In Christian times, fish-culture was not neglected and 

 the medieval mona:steries were always provided with a fish-pond, 

 ensuring suitable fare for Friday feasts. A fish-pond was re- 

 garded as necessary, no less than the butter}^ the brewhouse,and 

 the kitchen. 



Protection of adult fish and systematic fattening were the 

 main features of old-world fish-culture, but the Chinese as the 

 French Jesuit, Jean Baptiste Duhalde, has recorded, procured the 

 eggs of fishes, and cared for them in hatching tanks. The 

 Romans, as we have seen, adopted the Chinaman's plan to some 

 extent. 



Modern fish-culture, to adopt a Hibernicism, has taken a 

 great step in advance by taking the process a step further back, 

 and by manipulation of the parent fish secures the ripe eggs, 

 controls their fertilization, and incubation, and rears the fry, 

 when hatched, to a more or less advanced stage of growth. 



