12 



FISH CULTURE. 



struction of fish at certain seasons. An instance of this 

 pernicious practice is found in the pike fisheries in Lake 

 Champlain in the early spring. The pike, during the 

 months of March and April, seeks, for the purpose of 

 spawning, the shallower parts of the lake, and the streams 

 running into it, in such immense quantities, and are taken 

 in such vast numbers, that they cannot be disposed of, 

 for the reason that the supply is much greater than the 

 demand. That which is true of pike is true also of other 

 fishes, so that, in practical effect, the present modes of 

 fishing, — while they tend to the gradual decrease of the 

 finer sorts, gluts the market at those seasons in which fish 

 are kept with difficulty, and therefore will not bear distant 

 transportation, — tend in the same degree to produce great 

 scarcity during all the other seasons of the year. 



In order, therefore, to keep up our present supply, and 

 especially if we desire to increase it, it will become nec- 

 essary to frame such laws and regulations as will prevent' 

 this wholesale destruction, and will maintain for each 

 tribe a sufficient close time during the spawning season 

 as will secure the spawning of a number of eggs sufficient 

 to secure the abundant reproduction of all the desirable 

 varieties. 



In circumstances in which a close time, from economic 

 considerations, as in shad fisheries, may not be desirable, 

 such close time may be compensated by the artificial hatch- 

 ing in situ. This is done in some measure, and success- 

 fully, in the Connecticut and Hudson Rivers. And it is 

 done thus : At certain points, which for obvious reasons 

 are at the head of the shad waters, men are stationed, at 

 the spawning season, with nets and seines, who capture 

 the mature fish, and, gathering the spawn, hatch out the 



