15 



"The proof of the pudding is the eating" — one of the proofs of a fish 

 is the price people are willing to pay in order to eat it. Judged by this 

 standard, the carp is to be reckoned among the leading fishes of the 

 United States. It is regularly exposed for sale in every large city and 

 in innumerable small towns ; and the fishermen find such ready sale 

 for it at such good prices that in at least fifteen states special carp 

 fisheries are carried on, and in thirty-five states it is regularly taken for 

 market. At this time the annual carp catch amounts to about 

 20,000,000 pounds, for which the fishermen receive $500,000.00. 



Ilinois is not only the "sucker state," it is preeminently the "carp 

 state," and is not ashamed of the fact. It produces twice as many 

 carp as any other state, and its fishermen have for years been reaping 

 a golden harvest, finding a ready sale in the west and also sending 

 large consignments to New York in special cars. The next important 

 center is the western end of Lake Erie, in Ohio and Michigan, where 

 large special ponds have been constructed and a peculiar form of 

 cultivation has sprung up. The ponds are designed primarily for 

 retaining carp that have been seined in open waters until the price 

 warrants shipment, and some of them have to be kept at a proper 

 level. by pumping or by the use of water elevators. The expense in- 

 volved in the construction and maintenance of such works shows how 

 remunerative the carp is. Other important carp states are Colorado, 

 Delaware, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, 

 Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin. 



It is not as a great market fish, however, that the carp is destined 

 to attain its highest importance among us, but as a fish for private 

 culture and home consumption. The number of farmers and small 

 land owners who are alive to the benefits of private fish ponds is 

 increasing at a very rapid rate, and hundreds of thousands of such 

 in all parts of the country, but particularly in the great central region, 

 will find in the carp the species best adapted to their needs and con- 

 ditions. 



It is probable that the commercial value of carp is insignificant 

 compared with its importance as a food for other fishes. It is ex- 

 tensively eaten by many of our most highly esteemed food fishes and is 

 the chief pabulum of some of them in some places. In a number of the 

 best black bass streams, like the Potomac and the Illinois, the carp is 

 very abundant and is a favorite food of the young and adult bass, 

 while in California the introduced striped bass has from the outset 

 subsisted largely on carp and may owe its remarkable increase to the 

 presence of this food. 



The consumption of carp is certainly destined to increase greatly, 

 but even if the catch reaches no higher point, the introduction of the 

 carp into the United States will remain the leading achievement in 

 fish acclimatization in recent times, and, with the exception of the 

 original introduction of the same fish into Europe from Asia, the most 

 important the world has known. 



American anglers for bass and trout and salmon, as a rule, have 

 only contempt for the carp, and there is nothing so calculated to dis- 

 turb the equanimity of the otherwise amiable disciples of Walton as 



