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seems that Commissioners of this State have done more than those of any other 
state in furnishing for the inhabitants a cheap supply of fish. This state 
has not been at all backward in furnishing money for the fish Commissioners, 
If I remember rightly, the Commission was first appointed in 1868; the late 
Horatio Seymour, our friend the late Seth Green, and Mr. R. B. Roosevelt 
were appointed Commissioners to examine the subject Their report covered the 
ground completely. From that time interest in the matter throughout the state 
has been steadily growing, and it may be a surprise to some of you to know that 
during those years this State has appropriated $433,000 for the aid of the fish 
Commissioners in various ways; that includes $6,500 for the appropriation for 
shell fish; but aside from that, either for clerk hire or appropriations, that 
immense amount of money has been appropriated. I have no criticism or comment 
to make on the way that that money has been expended ; in my judgment great 
good has come from it. The commissioners have laboured assiduously and intel- 
ligently. They have performed all the duties without any salary, which I think 
is not to the credit of the State ; I believe there should be a proper salary affixed 
to that office, but of that the Commissioners have not complained, and perhaps I 
shouldnot. But in my judgment, it is not of the greatest importance to the 
inhabitants of this State that the Adirondacks, and island lakes and streams should 
be stocked, which, for a great part are private property, or owned by the State, 
and generally inaccessible, in which the ordinary citizen cannot fish because pro- 
hibited either by reason of private ownership or by being the property of the 
State. It is not of the first importance that those small inland lakes or rivers 
should be stocked with fish ; not a tenth of the importance that the supply of 
whitefish and salmon in Lake Ontario, and shad in the Hudson River should be 
increased. For the great majority of people in this state, trout in the Adirondacks 
are not of great consequence, but it is important that the immense quantity of 
whitefish and salmon that once existed in Lake Ontario should be restored, for 
then, in this locality, whitefish were sold for the nominal sum of four or five 
cents a pound, and furnished a great industry to parties along the lake from Lew- 
iston to Kingston ; and the salmon trout, the finest fish I believe found on the 
Northern States, is almost extinct except in the northern shore in Lake Ontario. 
Since I have held an official relation with this and Orleans County, I have made 
inquiries in regard to salmon trout. There are people living in this county who 
remember that twenty-five or thirty years ago salmon were in great abundance. 
I have recently conversed with intelligent citizens of Orleans County who state 
that in Oak Orchard Creek, Johnson’s Creek and in Sandy Creek, forty years 
ago salmon trout weighing as high as twenty to twenty-three pounds were 
caught in abundance. There wasno difficulty whatever in the average fisherman 
going to either of those creeks and supplying his family with all the fish desired. 
Now those streams, particularly Johnson’s Creek, Sandy Creek and Oak Orchard 
Creek have a gravelly bottom, and from aught | can see, are as well adapted to 
the cultivation of salmon to-day as forty years ago. At that time, and perhaps 
for fifteen or twenty years after that, it is very likely that the sawdust which 
accumulated in great quantities and floated down the streams in large quantities, 
drove the fish away. At least the fishermen attributed it to that, and I am 
informed that hemlock sawdust is poisonous to fish. At all events there are no 
salmon there to-day and have not been for thirty-five years. But there is nothing 
of that now, and as far as I know there is no deleterious substance in those streams 
which would prevent salmon and whitefish being hatched in those streams in 
abundance ; and I have the suggestion to make, for I understand the meeting is 
called for that purpose, that the Fish Commissioners of this State should turn 
their attention more to establishing hatcheries at various points along Lake 
