FEDERAL FISH FARIMING 



425 



INTERIOR OF A PACIFIC COAST SALMON HATCHERY 



The salmon eggs are incubated in wire baskets arranged in double rows in long troughs 



(see pages 421 and 432) 



piness of a larger number of people than 

 its fish-cnitural work, an evidence of 

 which fact is afforded by the attitude anc 

 action of Congress. The comparative!) 

 large budget for the various branches of 

 the bureau's work is voted each year 

 without any opposition whatever and the 

 appropriations are increasing yearly. 

 When special needs arise and their 

 merit is presented to Congress, special 

 appropriations can usually be obtained, 

 and government fish-culture is so popular 

 in the country at large and the demand 

 for new hatcheries is so widespread that 

 an extraordinary number of hatchery 

 bills have been introduced and favorably 

 considered in recent sessions of Congress. 

 The bureau advocates the building of 

 new hatcheries as one of the best and most 

 remunerative measures that can possibly 

 be undertaken by the federal govern- 

 ment, but it rarely has to take the initia- 



tive, and on several occasions the estab- 

 lishment of a hatchery has been proposed 

 by Congress before the necessity for it 

 has actually developed. 



During each of the recent sessions of 

 Congress, had all the bills providing for 

 new hatcheries become laws, the bureau 

 would have been seriously handicapped 

 in designing and constructing the new 

 buildings and ponds and in supplying 

 competent persons to operate them. In 

 the first session of the Sixtieth Congress 

 there were introduced loi distinct bills, 

 carrying an aggregate appropriation of 

 $2,142,000 and providing for 74 hatcher- 

 ies and 4 laboratories in 43 States and 

 Territories. 



SCIENCE AND THE FISH SUPPLY 



In making his original plans for the 

 svstematic investigation of the waters of 

 the United States and the biological and 



