REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 235 



for a period of several months requires constant labor, and labor means an outlay of 

 money. Only experienced men can do the work well, and in the best equipped and 

 best managed hatcheries, unforeseen accidents may arise and disease may appear, and 

 often it is cheaper to buy trout than to rear them. 



A hatchery that runs itself, with no artificial spawning, no egg picking, no pipes 

 to repair or replace, no heat to maintain to warm the men employed, no troughs to 

 tar and no trays to renew; in short, a hatchery with no men or troughs or pipes or 

 heat in it is quite a different matter, and one that may be considered when the other 

 is out of the question. 



During the past year I have received inquiries from more than a dozen different 

 sources, two from fishing clubs in Canada, upon the subject of inexpensive fish 

 hatcheries that may be maintained at moderate cost, and I have selected one of two 

 natural fish hatcheries belonging to fishing clubs on Long Island to be illustrated and 

 described to answer the inquiries, and doubtless other clubs or owners of private fish 

 preserves may see in such a natural hatchery the means of keeping up the fishing in 

 or re-stocking their waters. 



Trout are cannibals, and when confined in circumscribed waters, lacking an 

 abundance of food, eat the ova of one another from the spawning beds and the fry of 

 all indiscriminately to a greater or less extent. Most of such casualties are obviated 

 in a natural hatchery. The hatchery here described and illustrated was designed and 

 constructed by Commissioner Edward Thompson, the Shellfish Commissioner of this 

 State, and I know of but two more like it, both constructed under his direction; and it 

 is as simple in its operations as A, B, C, for you have only to lift a screen at the 

 proper time and the trout and the water do the rest. The ponds shown in the plan in 

 a series were dug in a depression between two ridges and are fed from springs on 

 either side and from an artesian well at the head of the smaller or upper pond. The 

 ponds shown are all used for rearing trout and outlet into a still larger pond, the 

 margin only of which is shown, and in this larger pond the fishing is done by the club 

 members and their guests. The upper pond is used for fry when taken from the 

 hatchery and in this they are fed until they grow to fingerlings and are moved down 

 into the adjoining pond, and as yearlings they go into the next or third pond, or into 

 both according to size, for some grow faster than others and they are sorted to keep 

 the trout of same size in one pond. The fourth and fifth ponds are for two year old 

 fish and they furnish the breeders, as no trout older than two years are now used as 

 breeding fish. These facts concerning the management of the fish in the ponds are 

 mentioned more to explain why there are five ponds in the illustration than with the 

 expectancy that any one desiring to rear trout in a similar hatchery will follow the 

 exact policy of the club owning the ponds. It is true that ponds will have to be 



