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269 
resolutions to be submitted at this time. They have not yet been discussed, but 
I think they will be satisfactory to those who tuke any interest in the question 
before us. The advantages to the great mass of the people in re-stocking Lake 
Ontario and the St. Lawrence, and the great chain of northern lakes with food 
fish is more apparent to my mind than ever before, because I am satisfied that 
the capabilities of Lake Ontario and the northern lakes for propagating and 
roducing fish have not been over-estimated. A very prominent gentleman in 
Ritsains county, Mr. J. H. White, informed me that in 1846 he saw sold in 
New York City on Wall street, salmon trout from Oswego. They were caught 
at a point near Oswego, carried in a sleigh to some point on the Hudson River, 
from there to New York in a wagon, and sold in Wall street at fabulous prices, 
_the purchasers stating that they were the finest fish they ever saw. Mr. M. F. 
Reynolds says that as late as 1861, Mr. Clapp, of New York, proprietor of the 
Everett House, asked him to make a contract with fishermen at Rochester and 
arrange for a supply of salmon trout for that hotel, which was for a long time 
thus supplied. These are facts of great importance as showing the quality of 
Lake Ontario fish. I referred at Rochester to the importance of stocking large 
bodies of water. The argument to my mind seemed unanswerable, for the reason 
that if the bodies of water in which you seek to raise and propagate fish are re- 
stricted, the quantity of fish produced must be also restricted and limited. But 
the boundless expanse of water in Lake Ontario, renders it admirably adapted in 
that respect to the culture of fish, and well adapted for propagating and contain- 
ing food fish. It is for that reason [ made the suggestion about stocking Lake 
Ontario and the northern lakes with food fish. It is admitted that the common 
brook trout is the handsomest and best pan fish there is, but it eannot be raised 
in sufficient quantities in this country to become food for the great mass of fish 
consumers, and it is useless, in my judgment, to attempt to make it so, until we 
have stocked the northern lakes, and the whitefish, siscoe herring and salmon are. 
restored to the number so abundant thirty-five or forty years ago. I need not: 
tell this audience that we are not pioneers in fish culture. It is certain that 
nearly 3,000 years ago fish culture was an important adjunct of Chinese eiviliza- 
tion, and since then the Chinese have turned their attention to stocking their large 
streams and bodies of water, so that fish can be purchased and obtained there 
much cheaper than in this country. This speaks volumes for a country that 
maintains over 450,000,000 people. A Chinese dignitary who visited the Fish- 
eries Exhibition at London, England, was able to give the commissioners of 
that country important points, especially about the preservation of small fry 
in streams. He expressed great surprise at the high prices obtained for fish, 
saying that in China they can be purchased for one-fourth or one-third of the 
price. Fish are used as a daily diet, and the demand would be very great if the 
prices placed them within reach of the mass of the people. You will pardon me 
for calling attention to one fact that will be significant. I am impressed with 
the idea that since fish culture and propagation is carried on so extensively in 
this country, the citizens of the State of New York and Western States ‘will 
realize the importance of keeping pure the large bodies of waters near populous 
cities. It is a fact that in Lake Ontario, the Genesee river, Irondequoit Bay, and 
in bodies of water in the vicinity of Rochester, lacge quantities of deleterious sub- 
stances are carried into the waters annually, and if it is deleterious to fish life it 
must be so to human life within reasonable distances of those bodies of water. An 
individual has no more right to pollute such bodies of water than to put poison- 
ous substances into a well or stream supplying a family with water. In my 
judgment the streams of New York State, Canada, or Michigan, are not fit deposi- 
tories for sewerage, and the time will come when attention will be called to this 
