2i8 Roosevelt Wild Life Bulletin 



cally about the same age, and it is pretty clear that none of thern last 

 over five years." 



The experience with the chinook salmon in Massachusetts has 

 been similar to that of Sunapee Lake, and substantiates the fore- 

 going prediction by the present writer. From 1913 to 1920 inclu- 

 sive, 420,215 young chinook salmon had been planted in fifteen 

 ponds and lakes in the State. The report of the director of the 

 Division of Fisheries and Game of that .State for 1920 ( W. C. 

 Adams, '20 j, says: " The attempt to establish the Pacific salmon in 

 ^Massachusetts waters was. at the best, an experiment, and, while in 

 the matter of growth some of the fish planted in Long Pond, Ply- 

 mouth, exceeded expectations, there was insufficient evidence that 

 the)- reproduced. Indeed, the probability that they would fail to do 

 so was always recognized, and that constant stocking would be the 

 price of whatever salmon fishing our waters might aftord. Thus 

 as each fishing season came around the results were watched with 

 the keenest interest, and more so than ever in 1920, because the catch 

 of 1919 had fallen oit materially from that of the previous year. 

 The salmon fishing in Long Pond failed utterly in 1920." 



Long Pond had been stocked with 24.000 young salmon in the 

 years 1914 to 1917 inclusive, and the following catches were subse- 

 quently made: Li 1917, about 100 salmon, the largest weighing 7 

 pounds ; in 1918, probably 350. running from 2 to 9 pounds, wnth 2 

 or 3 at 12 pounds; in 1919. about 800, but small sized, from 2 to 4 

 pounds ; and in 1920, very few, the largest 4 pounds. However, the 

 report for 1921 states that in several ponds an occasional specimen 

 was taken, and in Long Pond upwards of 500 fish were caught during 

 the entire open season. 



It appears that in most of the ponds that had been stocked no 

 salmon at all had ever been taken. In three of the ponds a very few 

 specimens had been caught. Lake Quinsigamond, which was the 

 first Massachusetts lake to be stocked and which had received 89,250 

 young fish during the years 191 3 to 1917 inclusive, is said to have 

 yielded possibly 70 fish in the third season, after which they dis- 

 appeared. 



In 191 9 the planting of cliinook salmon was abandoned by the 

 Massachusetts Commission, as it was not possible to obtain a satis- 

 factory supply of salmon eggs for the hatching work of 1920. 

 Oregon advised that no eggs could be expected : in CaHfornia egg- 

 taking was the smallest on record ; Washington could promise only 

 200,000 as against 600,000 and upwards in other years. 



So it appears that the chinook salmon expectations in the eastern 

 inland waters have failed, as most such random " experiments " have 

 failed and always will fail : but the tendency to indulge in them still 

 continues. 



In the summer of 1921 a notice appeared in a Portland, Maine, 

 paper to the eft'ect tliat the Governor was arranging to have Sebago 

 Lake stocked with Canadian sea salmon, ''' in order that there always 

 mav be good fishing in Sebago Lake."' The notice stated that if the 



