FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 1 5 



riences of the advantages which I had arrived at by actual test of the matter. The 

 question of the cost seems to be the only material one entering in ; but, if 100,000 fry 

 can be reared to yearlings at a less cost than 1,000,000 fry can be collected, hatched 

 and distributed, then there is no question but that the results in the first will be vastly 

 in advance of those obtained in the second. My judgment is that 1,000 yearling fish is 

 the equivalent of 100,000 fry when planted in waters frequented by small predaceous 

 fish, such as blobs, darters, and small perch, which are found almost universally in our 

 streams. And certainly it will cost much less, allowing the largest measure of expendi- 

 ture for it, to hatch and rear 1,000 trout than it will to hatch and plant 100,000 fry. 



" I think I mentioned to you before that we reared last year at the Green Lake 

 Station, Maine, in an improvised hatchery, about 140,000 yearling land-locked salmon, 

 at a cost of about $1,100. This illustrates what may be accomplished where prudent, 

 conservative and economical administration is enforced." 



In the work of the United States Fish Commission 83 per cent, of the -health}- fry 

 have been reared to an age of twelve months, and we think that no one will dare 

 assert or guess that anywhere near that percentage of fry planted in the wild waters 

 will survive the first year. Advanced fish culturists in Europe are united in acknowl- 

 edging the superiority of fingerling fish for stocking waters successfully, at minimum 

 cost, all things considered. So good an authority as Sir James Gibson Maitland, pro- 

 prietor of the Howietown Fishery, Sterling, Scotland, has said : " Our experience is 

 that there is no half-way house between ova sown in redds and three months old fry. 

 Young fry are too risky. They may do, but only where ova would do as well and at 

 half the cost." Ova in redds means that an artificial spawning bed is made in the 

 gravel, and the eggs, when the eye-spots of the embryo show, are planted therein. 



The late Thomas Andrews, of Guilford, England, one of the most successful fish 

 breeders in Europe, placed a higher value upon yearling fish, as compared with fry, 

 than did Colonel McDonald. He said : " My experience has taught me that one year- 

 ling fish is worth a thousand fry for stocking purposes. Yet I do not deny that a 

 great many fish can be saved in the fry stage by artificial feeding. * * * We cannot 

 get anything like enough yearlings, or two years old, to supply the demand, and most 

 people over here have given up stocking with fry." 



Mr. Andrews fed his fish natural food, shrimps, snails, and the larvae of insects 

 which he bred in large numbers. The only serious objection that has ever been raised 

 to rearing yearling fish, after the matter of water and room for rearing-boxes or ponds 

 has been disposed of, has been the cost, and this has been until quite recently a matter 

 of conjecture. It is admitted that young fish can be better protected from their enemies 

 in the rearing-boxes of a hatching station than in wild waters, and when a yearling 

 fish is turned out it is far better able to care for itself than a baby fish that has just 



