62 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



Report of tf)e ^aperintendent of 



Hatcheries. 



To fl)e Commissioners of Fisheries, (iame and Forests : 



Gentlemen : I have the pleasure of submitting to you a report of the operations 

 at our different hatching stations throughout the State during the period from April 

 25th, 1895, U P to October of the same year. 



I am sorry to say that but three of the State Hatcheries are so located that it is 

 possible for them to successfully raise yearlings of any of the different trout, but I do 

 consider it possible for these three hatcheries to successfully rear at least one-half a 

 million trout, such as lake trout, brook and brown trout, rainbow trout and land-locked 

 salmon, to the age of eight and twelve months. This necessitates the expenditure of 

 more money than has been expended under the old system of fry planting ; but if we 

 tax our hatcheries to the utmost, we must still turn out quite a number of fry, for the 

 reason that it is impossible to rear all the fry that we can hatch. For example, a 

 hatching trough that will carry successfully 150,000 trout eggs to the hatching period, 

 would not with safety carry 50,000 very young fry, and at twenty days old not over 

 25,000 ; at the time when they commence to feed, ten to fifteen thousand would be a great 

 plenty; at three months old five or six thousand is an outside number for the trough. 



The total output of fish of all kinds for the year ending September 30th, 1895, 

 exceeds by over fifty-five million the output of any former year in the history of the 

 State. The great increase in numbers has been among the food fish, such as the white 

 fish, frost fish, tomcods, smelts, ciscoes and pike-perch. 



Up to the present time the State of New York had no collection of specimens of 

 the different food fishes found in its borders, but we are now collecting specimens. 

 Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, who for years was the ichthyologist of the United States Fish 

 Commission, but at present Director of the New York Aquarium, has kindly consented 

 to identify without expense to the Commission, all specimens, which we shall 

 preserve, so that in our future work of hatching we may work intelligently. As this 

 collection increases, I am sure that the trifling expense attached to it will be lost sight 

 of when we look at the benefits to be derived from having such a collection. 



I am also making a collection of the different fish eggs which are hatched artificially 

 by the Commission, and I am making tables giving as near as possible the number of 

 each kind of eggs to the lineal inch and to the quart, as I have found the tendency in the 



