REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 5& 



of what has been done each year ; and I shall therefore give a brief ac- 

 count of what was done in 1878, premising that the appropriations, 

 beginning with $5,000 in 1871, have increased with each year, until those 

 for 1878 amounted to $78,200. 



The work of the Fish Commissioner is now prosecuted under the two 

 distinct heads of inquiry, and propagation, each with a corps of assist- 

 ants, for the most part occupied in different regions of the country. The 

 propagation department has special reference to the shad, the salmon of 

 California, the salmon of Maine, the land-locked salmon, the white-fish, 

 and the carp. 



The invention of apparatus by Mr. T. B. Ferguson, one of the fish 

 commissioners of Maryland, by which the hatching of shad could be 

 prosecuted on a much larger scale than before, and under more conven- 

 ient circumstances, marks a new era in the art of fish culture, experi- 

 ments made by him in 1877 having been extensively prosecuted by the 

 United States Fish Commission in 1878. 



For the purpose in question four scows were fitted up in Baltimore 

 two with suitable machinery and apparatus, and two .as quarters for the 

 men. These were taken to Albemarle Sound and established at a point 

 on the fishery of Dr. Capehart, of Avoca, by whom every assistance was 

 rendered in the supply of ripe fish, from which 10,000,000 of young fish 

 were hatched out and deposited in adjacent waters or transferred to 

 distant points. 



After the season for work in that vicinity had passed, the vessels w r ere 

 taken to Havre de Grace and anchored about five miles below the rail- 

 road bridge, in a sheltered cove. Here a much larger number of fish 

 was hatched out, and the young were distributed by special messengers 

 throughout the Union. The work of distribution of the young shad was 

 under the special supervision of Mr. James W. Milner, first assistant of 

 the commission; Mr. T. B. Ferguson, fish commissioner of Maryland, the 

 inventor and constructor of the hatching apparatus, however, having 

 charge of the propagation of the shad here, as also during the greater 

 part of the sojourn at Avoca. 



The result of the new experiment was perfectly satisfactory, and so far 

 as relates to the shad in the future, there is no limit to the amount of 

 work that can be- done other than that of the number of ripe eggs pro- 

 curable. 



The labor of obtaining the eggs of the California salmon at the Uni- 

 ted States hatching-station on the McCloud Kiver, in the Upper Sacra- 

 mento Valley, was also carried on on a much larger scale than ever 

 before, it being possible, as the direct result of the propagation in the 

 earlier part of the operations of the commission, under the charge of 

 Mr. Livingston Stjne, to procure as many eggs as were called for; and 

 no less than 15,000,000 eggs were obtained, and partly developed, and 

 then distributed to various State commissioners and other parties, by 

 whom they were hatched out and planted in the waters. A large num- 



