14 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



increase among the people as a healthy relaxation from the counting-house, the 

 pulpit, the workshop, the forge and the factory, and the whole people must be con- 

 sidered in the matter of propagating and planting fish in the waters of the State. The 

 angler and the commercial fisherman both have rights which we are bound to 

 respect, but our efforts are directed entirely to the propagation of food fishes, by 

 whatever special names their adherents may choose to call them. 



It will be the policy of the Commission, so far as its means and facilities will per- 

 mit, to radically change the manner of rearing and planting young fish. Heretofore 

 it has been the practice, largely, to plant the fry of the fall spawning fishes soon after 

 the yolk sac was absorbed. At this period of their existence the young fish are help- 

 less and an easy prey to their enemies. Fry of trout are of necessity planted in the 

 spring at a time when they are just beginning to feed, and the waters are apt to 

 be high and roily, and the natural food produced in the streams is not fully hatched 

 out as it will be later when the sun has warmed the air and water and developed the 

 larvae of all insect life. 



Fingerling trout planted in the fall are stronger, larger, and more active fish, and 

 find an abundance of food hatched out for them; the waters having been tempered by 

 the summer's sun and subsided from spring freshets, the trout have a better start in 

 every way to fight the battle which they must fight in wild waters. Improved 

 methods demand that the young fish be retained in rearing-boxes or ponds and fed 

 until they reach the age of from four to twelve months before they are planted in wild 

 waters. This will require additional rearing-boxes and ponds, and a greater expendi- 

 ture for food and labor, but the advantages and benefits to be derived from this 

 method of planting fish, in a great measure able to care for themselves, has been 

 demonstrated, and will well repay the outlay. It will be some time before all the 

 young of the fall spawning fishes can be reared to fingerlings before they are planted, 

 but so far as practicable this will be the method pursued. 



Four years ago the late Colonel Marshall McDonald, then United States Fish 

 Commissioner, writing to one of the staff of this Commission, said of one who was an 

 ardent "fry" man (/. e., one who believed in planting the helpless fish fry as soon 

 as they were ready to feed) : " If he chooses to attack the policy of the United 

 States Fish Commission in planting yearling fish, it will simply stamp him as unpro- 

 gressive and past his period of usefulness. The desirability of planting yearlings 



instead of fry has been recognized everywhere, particularly abroad. 



* 

 " In France and Spain several of the establishments have for a number of years 



been engaged in rearing their fry before turning them out. In changing from fry to 



yearlings in our work, I have only followed the indications of advantage which were 



apparent to me from the reports and experience of others, and from similar expe- 



