FISHERIES, GAME AM) FORESTS. 65 



Last summer the Trustees of the Village of Catskill expressed their willingness to 

 grant the privilege of taking water from their water mains, or from their pump-house, 

 which is located north of Catskill Landing, on the west side of the river. This pump- 

 house is within one-half mile of one of the best shad-fishing grounds on the river. 

 The proper building and appliances could be erected at a cost not exceeding five or six 

 hundred dollars. 



The United States Commission of Fisheries have always been very generous, and 

 donated from two to ten million shad eggs, or fry, each year to the State of New York, 

 from their hatching stations, located at the mouth of the Susquehanna River and on 

 the Delaware River, near Philadelphia. 



A few applications for bullheads come to the Commission. They are a very 

 desirable food fish, and if very little attention was given to the collecting and planting 

 of them during the proper season, the results would be most beneficial. At a trifling 

 expense, one or two men can collect thousands during the summer. 



Chautauqua Lake never contained bullheads until they were planted there a few 

 years ago. Now the lake is full of the best bullheads in this or any other State. 



The Ohio Fish Commissioners are always happy if the New York Commission 

 give them each year a few hundred for their breeding ponds, as they consider them 

 very desirable stock. 



Last summer the Ohio Fish Commissioners, in return for bullheads they received 

 in the spring, gave the Fisheries, Game and Forest Commission of New York 2,000 

 small-mouth black bass, free of all charges except transportation. 



I wish to call your attention to the success attained by this Commission in the 

 work of hatching tomcod and smelt at the Cold Spring Harbor Hatchery on Long 

 Island. 



The local papers and the fishermen along the Long Island shores are very enthu- 

 siastic in their reports of the increased number of tomcod caught during the past 

 season. Thirty-two million Were planted during January and February last. I feel 

 very confident that from fifty to seventy-five million fry will be planted the coming 

 season. 



A few years ago smelt were unknown in the creek emptying into Cold Spring 

 Harbor, and which passes within a few yards of our hatchery, but at present, owing 

 to liberal planting* of smelt fry in the past, our men are able to take large quanti- 

 ties of eggs at their very door. Last spring something like forty-one million fry of 

 smelt were deposited in the different suitable places along the Long Island coast, 

 in the bays of Staten Island, and in Westchester county. I have every reason to 

 believe that anywhere from sixty to eighty million of smelt fry will be planted 

 during the coming season. 



