94 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. 



Norris speaks of different kinds of food for fry, such 

 as "Liver or lean meat, boiled hard and grated; the 

 )'olks of eggs, boiled hard and reduced almost to a pow- 

 der; raw liver, chopped fine with a long sharp knife; 

 fresh or coagulated blood; fresh shad or herring roe, 

 raw or boiled ; thick milk or bonnyclabber and curds." 



I had an experience in trying most of these things. 

 Mr. Stephen H. Ainsworth, the first man to breed trout 

 in the State of Nev>' York, cautioned me not to over- 

 feed the fry. I had taken some 50,000 eggs from wild 

 trout in my first year's work and had bought 20,000 

 more, and my few troughs were full. My loss in un- 

 impregnated eggs was great, for I had no instructor. I 

 had about 35,000 fry. I must try different foods and 

 observe their effect, being careful not to feed too much. 



The boiled tgg was a failure. It dissolved and 

 spread over the gravel and grew fungus ; the fry were 

 all head and no body, looking snaky. The curd acted 

 the same way; clotted blood was worse. All these 

 troughs must be cleaned if the fish were to be saved, and 

 a vile mess that gravel was. The grated boiled beef 

 was not so foul, but the fish were evidently starving. 

 Although a novice, I could see that. Those fed on 

 fresh liver were doing well comparatively, but were 

 slim and "all head." I changed to liver in all the 

 troughs and some fish began to pick up, but thousands 

 died. I caught a few "wild" ones that had either 

 escaped from my troughs or been naturally spawned, 

 and their deep bodies, broad backs and relatively small 

 heads showed that my fish were not well fed and were 

 just kept alive. "Why,"' I asked myself, "should a 

 young trout be restricted in its food ? Surely it gets all 

 it wants when wild." Then I fed them all they would 

 eat every half hour, and could see them pick up, but 



