232 PROPAGATION OF FISH. 



trout stream, to largely increase his revenue and Ms pleas- 

 ure by recruiting his preserves and making waste waters, 

 if not to blossom as roses, to produce a yield of food for 

 the table and sport for the rod. 



We shall turn first our attention to trout and salmon 

 culture, which are so nearly identical that they may be 

 studied together. There are at present no natural salmon 

 rivers in this country except in Maine, Oregon and Cali- 

 fornia, the efforts to restock the Merrimac and the Con- 

 necticut having only achieved partial success. It is the 

 present opinion of the Avriter that salmon were never 

 regular visitors of the Hudson Kiver, or that if they were 

 indigenous to it, it was only in very limited numbers. 

 This opinion was formed from a study of the waters 

 which are not well adapted to the propagation of that 

 class of fishes. Further south than If ew York, salmon 

 were probably never known to go at all. 



Under the head of Salmon, may be included the salmon, 

 the trout, the salmon-trout, otherwise called lake-trout, 

 the whitefish, the grayling, the fresh-water herring or 

 Cisco, and California brook-trout, and the California 

 salmon. The scientific names of these are, salmo solar, 

 salmo fontinalis, salTno conjinis, salmo amethystus, core- 

 gonus alhus, thymallus signifer, and salmo quinnat. 

 These are all essentially alike in their mode of culture, the 

 differences being so inconsiderable that they may be dis- 

 regarded for the present. We shall speak of one for the 

 whole, only occasionally pointing out such individualities 

 as may be necessary. 



They spawn in the autumn and winter, with the excep- 

 tion of the California salmon, which is earlier, and spawns 

 in summer and first of autumn ; the grayling, a fish of the 



