261 
———— ee —EEE — ———— — 
paralyse our efforts; there is no question about it. As I said this morning, the 
very direction Mr. Stewart is seeking to have taken in Canada is the very direc- 
tion we are seeking, and that is to have the provinces or local commonwealths 
take care of the fishing on their own borders ; let them go hand in hand, as they 
necessarily must. Any movement that may be taken by the United States Fish 
Commission towards enlarging its work on these lakes will meet with the most 
hearty co-operation from the Michigan Board, and I am sure will from the Wis- 
consin Board, and the neighbouring boards. We have had numerous conferences 
with those north-western commissions and we are in hearty accord with them. I 
recall the commission at Put-in-Bay ; I remember very well how several members 
of the Ohio commission felt grieved on that occasion; they felt as though the 
state, instead of withdrawing from the work, ought to increase it. There is no 
difficulty and no danger whatever of too much money being expended in that 
kind of work; and it is not enormously expensive, either. The difficulty is to 
interest people. We have got Michigan pretty well educated. We haven't had 
much difficulty in several years in getting such reasonable appropriations as we 
ask for. It would surprise you to know that one of the arguments made use of by 
one of the patrons of industry, (he was about the only one, that is, he and one or two 
who stood by him, against the appropriation) was “this propagation of fish is so 
cheapening the food that it comes in competition with our pork.” That is one of 
the things which we have tried to make the people believe and this man came out 
and argued it and it had the effect we supposed. I hope the time will come when 
every fish that is taken, of wall-eyed pike and whitefish, shall have its eggs taken 
and propagated before it is killed and eaten, We have the control of the whole 
length of the Detroit River on the American side and that is what we are doing 
with it; we need, to fill our Detroit hatchery, ten thousand whitefish, ten 
thousand mature fish. As I said, it takes, to fill our Detroit hatchery, about a 
hundred bushel of eggs. 
All movements this commission will make that will prevent the depletion of 
our lakes, will have the hearty concurrence of our commission, and we will do 
anything in reason that shall be recommended, and we flatter ourselves we have 
some considerable influence with our legislature, too. 
I suppose ‘there are more whitefish taken at Sandusky than any other point 
in the world. The same force that takes and hatches our whitefish, which are 
taken in the fall, as you know, and hatched in March or Apzil, that 
same force as soon as the whitefish are out of the jars, takes the wall-eyed 
pike. It is essential for our inland planting, we take and plant out in 
our inland lakes, and it is our design, as far as possible, to fill the jars 
as full as we can. We take off the wall-eyed pike eggs and plant them, 
and they hatch in about thirty days, and hatch them with but little ex- 
pense. Suppose the commercial fishing should be taken away from us, that 
would certainly go with the other, and we might as well hatch whitefish and 
wall-eyed pike as to hatch either one, and we have a great many inland lakes 
that are well adapted for the breeding of wall-eyed pike ; and the wall-eyed pike, 
with the scarcity of whitefish, is getting to be reckoned with the whitefish in the 
market; it certainly stands only second in the market to the whitefish. 
Mr. Amspen: Mr. Chairman, as Senator McNaughton remarked this morn- 
ing, there was a time when we had an abundance of food fish in Lake Ontario. 
He put it back further than I should. Within a shorter time our markets have 
been supplied from that source with whitefish, and at much less price than at 
present and with fish very superior to any other. 
