FISH CULTURE. 9 



ciary or the Legislature initially to determine the boundary 

 between public and personal rights and property. The 

 following questions are to be solved : What acts are nec- 

 essary to be done to transform the fish, in a pond sur- 

 rounded with land owned by one individual, — a pond or 

 lake embraced within the original survey, — from their 

 original condition of ferae naturae, — liable to capture ac- 

 cording to constitutional provision, — into domesticated 

 animals and private property 1 The same question per- 

 tains to all non-navigable streams, so far as those streams 

 are bounded by lands on both sides owned by one indi- 

 vidual. Do the owners of land on Lake Champlain hold 

 any fishing rights in the waters bordering their lands ? 



'Assuming that the State has an undoubted right to 

 regulate and control fisheries and fishing within her 

 boundaries, it is well to glance for a moment at the possi- 

 bilities in the matter of fish culture in this direction. 



The limit of the production in any given waters is the 

 food for fishes existing in or producible in the given 

 waters. For present issues, it is sufficient to divide our 

 fishes into those which are flesh and those which are vege- 

 table eaters. Then again, of these there are some which 

 for various reasons affect or flourish best in deep, and 

 others, again, flourish best in shallow waters. Lakes with 

 bold shores and deep waters are best fitted for certain kinds 

 of fishes, and lakes with level shores and shallow, reedy 

 waters are best adapted to certain other kinds. Temper- 

 ature, however, comes in to qualify these conditions. 



Ponds stocked with predatory fishes are stocked on the 

 Kilkenny cat principle. They prey upon one another. 

 But ponds stocked with vegetable eaters, as well as flesh 

 eaters, are vastly more prolific. The grass feeding fishes 



