IOO REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



Perhaps the next great step was the rearing of the helpless fry to fingerlings or 

 yearlings, in the hatching stations, before turning the fish into wild waters. The 

 importance of this step is perhaps not fully understood yet, but coupled with the first 

 great step it places artificial fish culture where it can almost bid defiance to natural 

 conditions operating against young fish life, and the second step is as valuable to the 

 world as the first. 



But there is a third step yet to be taken, and it must be taken or fish culture will 

 lose some of the benefits already derived, and how few there are, comparatively, who 

 realize the necessity for taking this third step, which is to provide food for the young 

 fish turned into the water in millions, where nature has provided food only for thousands. 



Twelve years ago I prepared a paper upon "Food Fish and Fish Food," which was 

 read before the American Fisheries Society, in which I called attention to the neces- 

 sity for providing food for the young fish turned out from the State and National Fish 

 Hatcheries. Commenting upon the paper before the meeting in the discussion which 

 followed, the late Col. Marshall McDonald, then United States Fish Commissioner, said: 

 "The paper of Mr. Cheney presents interesting facts. In our plantings of white fish 

 and shad we have left out the food question entirely. I remember that years ago Mr. 

 Seth Green made the statement that shad could be produced in such numbers as to 

 flood the James River when they returned from the sea full grown. Perhaps this could 

 have been done if the fish went to sea for their food as soon as they began to feed, 

 but they remain in the river six or more months and must have food. To this food 

 there is a natural limit. Take the Hudson for instance. At Troy and below there is 

 only a certain amount of food and only a certain number of fish can live and grow. 

 All above this number will be insufficiently fed. The only manner in which the extra 

 quantity of shad can find food is to open the gates and let the fish go higher." 



This mode of " opening the gates " by planting the young shad in the upper 

 river and by building fishways, to let the adult shad up to spawning grounds above 

 Troy, is referred to in another paper in this report. In 1883, Col. McDonald had not, 

 evidently, considered the plan of cultivating food for fish at the same time that the 

 fish are cultivated. In the discussion from which I have quoted Col. McDonald's 

 remarks, the late George Shepherd Page, president of the American Fisheries Society, 

 said: "This paper by Mr. Cheney is a most interesting and timely one, and it is one 

 that will bear continued agitation. Too many people make ponds and put fish in 

 them to either starve or drag out a miserable existence. The cases cited by 

 Mr. Cheney are to the point and show conclusively that attention should be paid to 

 fish food as well as to food fish." 



What attention has been paid to this matter, admittedly of vital importance, 

 during the twelve years that have passed since Col. McDonald, never afraid to admit 



