FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 



'55 



It matters little whether the fry which are to be reared to fingerlings are fed in 

 boxes in the trough (the difference betwen a box and a tray in the trough is that the 

 mesh of the wire bottom of the box is finer and the sides and ends are higher), or 

 in the trough itself, or in specially constructed rearing boxes in the hatchery, which 

 are as long as the troughs, wider and deeper, with gravel bottoms, as eventually they 

 will or should all go into rearing races or ponds outside the hatchery. As the 

 fry begin to feed they turn their heads up stream against the current, and are more 

 evenly distributed through the water. If they nibble the tails of one another fun- 

 gus will appear, and salt is put into the trough at its head as a remedy. Fry are fed 

 five or six times each day on ground beef's liver, diluted with water to the consistency 

 of cream, and the object is to give the little fish all they will eat without leaving a 

 surplus of food to foul the box or trough, and thus be the cause of disease which 

 may carry them off. As they grow they are fed less often, and the liver is no longer 

 diluted, but given to them as it comes from the grinding machine, but overfeeding 

 is always to be guarded against for the reason given, no matter what the age of the 

 fish may be. 



It is not the object of this paper to go into the details of rearing trout fry in a 

 hatchery, with a recital of all the obstacles to overcome before the fish arrive at the 

 fingerling stage, the diseases they are heir to, and the constant care they require at 

 the hands of the hatchery attendants, and, therefore, scant reference is made to 

 hatchery management, but enough has been said to show that vigilance is the price 

 that must be paid to insure healthy fingerling fish at the end of the first season. 

 Hatchery tools can be shown more clearly than described, and they are tweezers of 

 wood with ringed ends for picking out dead eggs, small nets for lifting fry, a feather 

 to move the eggs and a brush to clean the trough and trays. 



A " fingerling " trout is planted when it is about eight months old, and it may be 

 two and a half inches- in length or it may measure six inches. Trout at six months 

 of age have measured six and a half inches in length, but this is exceptional. Of a 

 lot of trout hatched at the same time from a tray of eggs taken all on the same day, 

 some will grow much faster than others, the strong active fish receiving the greater 

 amount of food and crowding the weaklings on one side, for it is abundance of food 

 which makes size in trout. It is the unequal growth which causes the fish breeder 

 to sort his young fish into ponds of large, medium and small fish of same size. 

 There are two reasons for this : If not sorted the larger trout would eat the smaller, 

 and after sorting the smaller ones grow much more rapidly when relieved of the pres- 

 ence of larger more vigorous fish. If the trout are sorted at six months of age the 

 smaller fish may be grown so rapidly by proper feeding as to almost equal the size 



