Pood for Pisl)es. 



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V HE science of propagating fish by artificial processes 

 has made wonderful strides since the year 1 741 , 

 when Stephen Ludwig Jacobi, "the Father of Fish 

 Culture," hatched trout in little wooden troughs on 

 his ancestral estate of Hohenhausen, in the Province of Var- 

 enholz, Germany. With the discovery, in 1856, of the dry 

 method of impregnating fish egg, made by V. P. Vrasski, in Russia, it was possible to 

 impregnate and hatch 100 per cent, of the eggs of fishes of the salmon family, and that 

 is as far as the science of fish culture can go in this direction. How great an improve- 

 ment this result was over that obtained by natural processes was largely, if not wholly, a 

 matter of speculation until it was found, only a few years ago, that of a lot of salmon eggs 

 deposited by the fish in a Canadian salmon stream only two per cent, by actual count 

 were impregnated. The salmon had deposited their eggs, the stream had fallen until 

 the spawning beds were exposed, or nearly so, and the Fisheries Department of the 

 Dominion began the work of rescuing the eggs from destruction. A strict count was 

 kept of all the eggs secured, with the result stated. It was a wonderful accomplish- 

 ment to exceed nature by ninety-eight per cent, in the matter of impregnating and 

 hatching fish eggs, so wonderful that the science of fish culture placed a crown of laurel 

 upon its head and waited for a season to hear the plaudits of the world. This was 

 human nature and excusable, and the accomplishment was so great and of such vital 

 importance to the whole world in solving the economic food problem, that fish culture 

 would have remained crowned with bays for all time if no further steps had been 

 taken in the science. 

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