110 DOMESTICATED TROUT. 



by mail or express to a Massachusetts breeder, who 

 can take a ripe spawner from his ponds and mix the 

 Kansas milt and Massachusetts eggs in the impreg- 

 nating pan, and so generate a cross between the two 

 fish, as well as if the Kansas breeder had sent him, at 

 a great risk, some male trout. The great ease with 

 which this crossing can be accomplished may some 

 day lead to valuable results. 



Another consequence is that the old theory that a 

 large proportion of the eggs ordinarily taken from the 

 spawning trout are immature, and therefore cannot 

 be impregnated, must be given up. I have opposed 

 this theory all through my trout-breeding experience, 

 and insisted that the trouble in poor impregnations 

 was not in the eggs, but in the milt, as it has now 

 turned out to be. But the immature-egg theory had 

 its advocates in high quarters, and has been very gen- 

 erally received. There, however, can be no question 

 about it hereafter. If ninety-five per cent of the eggs 

 are impregnated and hatched by the Russian method, 

 then not more than five per cent of the eggs are 

 immature, and we doubt if even this small proportion 

 are. 



The Russian discovery also wholly sets aside the 

 question about which there has been such contradic- 

 tory opinions, as to whether the milt or the eggs should 

 be taken first. Under the old regime it was considered 

 an important matter, and so it was ; but now it makes 

 no difference which is used first, as, either way, both 

 the milt and the eggs will remain operative long 

 enough for all practical purposes of impregnation, and 

 in both cases the results will be the same. 



