78 AMERICAN FISH CULTURE, 



farm hands, would put up a large hatching-house in a week. 

 The time between corn planting and the first ploughing, 

 might be put in to advantage. After hay and oat harvest, 

 another turn at the ponds might be taken, and the lull after 

 the crops are in would suffice to finish them. Winter, in 

 which the farmer has but little to do, would be pleasantly 

 and profitably employed in attending to the hatching. He 

 would have a certain supply of fish food from curds, and an 

 occasional one from the animals he would kill. Using 

 milk does not rob the butter jar or the pig pen, as it can 

 be turned into curd after skimming, and the whey can go 

 to the slop barrel. A friend in an adjoining county keeps 

 forty cows to supply milk dealers in town. He has embarked 

 in trout breeding, and says if his hopes are realized, and the 

 matter of food should require it, he will make butter instead 

 of selling milk, and turn all the latter, after skimming, into 

 curds. 



Farmers, taking them as a body, are slow in receiving a 

 new idea or adopting new theories. Wheat and corn, which 

 they know all about, are pretty certain, although they 

 require much labor, and some outlay in their production. 

 But here is a branch of industry which can be grafted on, 

 aquseculture an adjunct to agriculture. It can be made as 

 much of an accessary as keeping bees or poultry, and with 

 no more labor. Trout are much less mischievous than the 

 latter, they,do not invade the garden or a newly sown or 

 planted field, and can always be found withiji their circum- 

 scribed bounds. " But," says the farmer, " folks will steal 

 my trout," a town or manufacturing village withiu a short 



