Jaitoabt 37, 1881.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



507 



Cimis occuienUilif vo: .-iln-.—aW pi-eKcut'Tl. Oue axis deer, Cerints 

 axis ; one Emu, Drommif. nor.r holla>idim ; one sambnr deoi', 

 Ccrous arisioldis : two Amherat. pkea^rml-h. Thnumaleaamtierstice: 

 two blue jays, Cyanurtii' o-isiahts—M leceived ia exchange. 



Pbakk J. Thompson, Sup't 



Albino Quail.— Mr. Frederick Fair, of Craubury, N. J., 

 has a case of game birds, put up at least forty y ars ago for 

 Mb father, and still in a perfect stale of preservation. He 

 baa recently added tn the collection a bcantiful Albino quail, 

 shot bv LliL : . ' i'-;ir Diivton, N. J. 



A liluvl; Iv five feet from tip to tip, was 



caught 01- - ;jij:Iii.?town, by D Oakerson. 



THE CENTRAL FISHCULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ToONTISirED."] 



MR. MILLER : We would like discussions upon the 

 merits and demerits of this Iowa lishway law, the plea 

 of Ihis Iowa mill-owner and on Mr. Shaw's reply to him ; 

 also deci.sionR of the different State com-ts upon this question, 

 with citations of authorities, tlirough the columns of Forest 



AND StBEAM. 



Mb. Shaw : There is no doubt about the constitutionality 

 of tlielaw; it simply needs enforcing. Men have placed ob- 

 structions in streams und prevented the people living upon 

 them from drawing their flsb food from the waters where it 

 was placed for man before mills were tboiiglit of. 



The SKORETAnv then read the following paper : 

 THE GROWTH O? CARP IIN' AMERICA. 

 r.Y ri:iiD matiiki:. 



It is a well-known fact that wlien au animal undergoes a 

 change of climate it seldom rcmniiiB as it was before the 

 change. It either improves or deleitorates and riflon quite 

 rapidly. A case which illustrates the latter phase i.s that of 

 the bulldog, which, taken to India, loses the corn-age which 

 dislingui-shcd it ia the British Islands and becomes a com- 

 plete coward. Other instances are recorded in the pages of 

 natural history where room will now have to be made to note 

 the fact tliat the carp, after transplanting to America, has 

 grown to three times the size, in the same space of time, 

 which it did in Germany. 



I propose in this paper to give the rates of growth in dif- 

 ferent parts of our own country, compiled from correspond- 

 ents in different States, and also the rati ) of growth in Ger- 

 manj', obtained directly from the most reliable Ji.^hculturists 

 of that country, and think that this testimony will bear out 

 my assertion r(-garding the incrciised rate of" gi-owth of our 

 newly-imported food tish, which thus becomes more valuable 

 than it was thought to be on its first introduction. The first 

 witness I will call is Mr. Volney Metcalfe. He writes as fol- 

 lows to Prof. S. F. Baird, who thought the latter of import- 

 ance enough to publish in Foeest a^jd STRE.iit of August 19, 



1880: 



KossB, L1ME.ST01JE County, Texas, June 28. 

 Prof. Spenoer F. Baibd, United States Commissioner Fish 

 and Fisheries ; 

 Bear 8ir — The German carp, sent Sam Bell and me last 

 fall, are doiug as finely as any one could possibly ask. * * 

 * We put five of them in the tank (or pond) and fed all 

 of them on com bread and vegetables that bad seed, such as 

 tomatoes, squashes, etc., all of which they ate. They 

 seemed to like the .<;qiia3h best and preferred it baked. Sev- 

 eral of them seemed to be sick when they reached us, and 

 died soon afterward; the remamder are now about four 

 inches wide and a f.">i Inmr. (/om tiread is their favorite 

 diet, aitd by teedinL 1, 1 -: i i^' same place everyday they 



A gentleman tri'ii. Ti .in i-,:-^ i-, who signs himself J. H. D., 

 writes to Forest and Stkea-M. of August 20 as follows : 



Nashville, Tenn., Aug. 6. 



Colonel Akers, our Fish Commissioner, received last year 

 from Prof. Baird, a qiiiuility of German carp. Mr. Frank 

 Green obtained forty of these little .strangers to place in a 

 pond on his farm near the city, lie reports them having 

 giTiwn to live or si.v inches in lengtli, and says that he has 

 noticed an euornious number of .small minnows in the pond 

 lately. Can they be the product of the carp so recently 

 placed there ? At what age do they begin to spawn? Mr. 

 Green says that there were a fen' nmd-cal in ihe pond when 

 the carp were put in it. Could it be that the minnows re- 

 ferred to were of that species. It wotdd be a matter of in- 

 terest to have au answer from the Forest kwo Stbeam to 

 these questions. 



To this ihe editor replies -. 



There have been many reports of the spiiwiung of carp 

 which were distributed last year, and it ia pnisililc that yours 

 nniy have done so. It is also possible that the yoimg lish re- 

 ferred to are carp. It does not seem possible that they could 

 be confounded with " nnid eels." Send specimens to Prof. S. 

 F. Baird, AA''ashingtou, D. C, and then you will get positive 

 information. 



The rapidity with which this fish has grown in southern 

 waters is something wonderful, and it is to be remembered 

 that all the accounts of extraordinary growth so far have come 

 from the South, proving the a.ssertion th.at the warmer the 

 water the greater the growth, or perhaps to say that the 

 longer tbe warm season lasts the greater the growth is, 

 would more nearly express it. 



A Florida carp culturist writes Piof. Baird, and his letter 

 was also published in Forest asb Stkea.m of Septem))er 16, 

 and drew out correspondence from Germany's foremost flsh- 

 culturist, Herr von Behr, whose letter is given further on, as 

 follows : 



RtxFOED, Fla., Aug. 0. 

 Prof. Bmbd : 



Dear Sir — It will doubtless be a pleasure to you to learn 

 that the carp you furnished me wtli last November are do- 

 ing finely. I ascertained on my return from Savannah with 

 them that my pond was not rr-.iily for their reception, owing 

 to the fact that there were many more black bass in it than I 

 had stipposed. I accordingly confined the carp in a pen at the 

 Bide of the pond, giving them water through holes in the 

 side covered with wire netting. A few weeks smce I dis- 

 covered that a portion of the wire had been misplaced and 

 some of them escaped into the pond, and I then concluded 

 to let tbem all into it, as I liad nearly all the bass out. Their 

 growth since that time has been siinply marvelous. Many 

 of them are ten or eleven inches long, rmd I feel certain they 

 will spawn this fall. Will it be too much trouble for you w 

 acquaint me with their habits f Do they bed, like some 

 other varieties, when they spawn? I will add that they seem 



quite tame, and come to the place where I feed them as 

 quickly as a drove of pi^ would come for corn, whenever 

 tJiey find I am there I am confident they will prove a great 

 addition to 'he food fish of the South, rmd 1 slmll take 

 pleasure in distribiiting them as soon as they projiaiinie 



Very truly yours, Geo. C Ki.nkord. 



Mr. Rixford also writes to Forest and Stream as follows: 



It may interest some of your readers to learn that the 

 German carp are thriving splendidly in our waters. Last 

 November I received a lot from Prof. Baird. which I think 

 were then from three to four inches in li'iigth. They are 

 now from ten to twelve inches, and appear to make a visible 

 growth from day to day. I think they are the greatest addi- 

 tion to our food fishes that has ever Ijeen made. 



That the carp makes rapid growth in the State of New 

 York is attested by the following item from Foeest and 

 Stream of October 4: " Mr. Geo, W. Hopkins, of Mount 

 Sinai, Long Island, N. Y^, received some c;irp last spring 

 from the national carp ponds at Washington, througn Mr. 

 E. G. Blackford, Commissioner of Fisheries for New York, 

 which were then about three inches in length, but by Octo- 

 ber 1 would measure from twelve to fourteen iuches. 



The same paper contains the following from TcfCiis : 



Of WOK OF the Pish Commission, \ 

 Austin, Tex.as, Oct. 4, 1880. j 

 Pbof. Spbnoeb F. Baiet), Washington, D. C : 



Dear Sir — I saw a day or two ago one of the carp sent me 

 last winter (these fish were the young of 1879 and about 

 three or four inches long when received) ; it measured twen- 

 ty inches. I am inclined to think they spawned this last 

 summer, for the rea.son that the pond is now filled with 

 small fry, unknown before in the pond. Should it prove to 

 be correct I will inform you. Respectfully, 



•I.'H. DiKivixs, Fish Commissioner. 



An account comes from Georgia, which gives the largest 

 growth attained by this fish in America. It must, however, 

 be remembered that this is the first season in which the fish 

 has had a good trial in the South, and also that these Georgia 

 carp are measured late in the season, having an advantage of 

 several weeks over those before recorded. It appears in 

 Forest and Stream of December 9, headed " .Astounding 

 Growth of Carp," and says ; " It is a fact that the carp has 

 grown faster in America than it does in its original home; 

 but the most wonderful story comes from Georgia. A gen- 

 tleman in Macon sends Professor Baird the following "slip 

 from B local paper and vouches for its truth. It says: 

 'Yesterday afternoon 3Ir. E. ^^'itkow3ky, who owns the tan- 

 yard on the old Confederate property, concluded to cut the 

 dam and clean out the pond in order tluil he might introduce 

 his new German carp. The pond contained a large number 

 of smaller fish, and among them Jlr, Wilkowsky hoped to 

 find his four carp which bad been put into the pond last 

 May. He found three of the fish, but to his a-tonishment 

 they were by actual measurement twenty, tweisty-two and 

 twenty-five inches in length respective"ly. The fourth 

 escaped through the cut in the dam. These carp were 'but 

 two or three inches long when put in the pond and their 

 growth is remarkable. They arc now in the tank in the rear 

 of their owner's store on Cherry street, where we saw them 

 last night and where the public are invited to see them to- 

 day.' "" 



The correspondence between Mr. Ri.xford and Herr von 

 Behr, President of the German Fishery Association, alluded 

 to above, I take from Forest and Stream of Nov. 18, and 

 consider it worthy of a wide cu'culatiou as comiug from a 

 gentleman who has devoted his time and money to promote 

 flshcultm-e as a means of producing food, with no thought of 

 personal benefit to himself and who had known the carp for 

 years. The editor prefaces the correspondence with these re- 

 marks : 



The widespread interest manifested in the culture of this 

 fish since its introduction by the United States Fish Commis- 

 sion is so ureat lli:it we are certain that our readers will find 

 the foliowuig letters from Jli. Rixford and Herr von Behr, 

 the well-linowu I'lCiidcnl of the Deutsche Fischerei Verein, 

 who has done so much fi.r fishculture in Germany, of great 

 interest. 



Although we have many fish which excel the carp as a ta- 

 ble fish, yet we believe that its introduclion will prove of the 

 greatest value in those portions of the country where the 

 warm waters produce nothing edible, and that we could with 

 more profit dispense with any other fresh water fiaii, outside 

 of the whitefish of the lakes, than the carp, speaking from 

 the fishculltu'lsts' and an economical point of view, for there 

 is no fish which, in confined waters, will turn out, so many 

 pounds of food as the carp, and its food costs little or noth- 

 ing. Its rale of growtli here has exceeded that in its native 

 land and its introduction into American waters will prove to 

 be worth a vast sum within the next ten years to our hog- 

 eaiing farmers, who seldom get a fish dinner. With this pref- 

 ace we ^ve the following correspondence : 



Rixford, Suwannee Co., Pla., Nov. 1. 

 Editor Forest and Stream : 



Y'our favor of the 23d of October, covering a very interest- 

 ing letter from Baron von Behr, came to me in due season. 

 It appears that I am indebted to you for this correspondence, 

 as it was through the medium of the Forest and Stream 

 that the Baron's attention was drawn to my letter to Prof. 

 Baird, which you published, and I cheerfully send you a copy 

 of his latter for your use, as well its a copy of my reply, 

 which you can use or not, as you deem best. 



Geo. C. Rixfokd. 

 SoHMOLDOw, inPomebania, Germany, (^ 

 October 4, 1880. t 

 My Dear Mb. Rixford : 



It is after having read in Forest and Steeam of September 

 16 your letter about carp that I take the liberty of writing 

 you some lines. 



1 have been receiving such manifold assistance from your 

 countrymen in my fishcnltural interests that I am glad to be 

 able, perhaps, to a?sist yon, though of course Prof. Baird will 

 have furnished you with the most ueedeil hints 



I dare say cai'p wiU de'ight in the climate of Florida. They 

 are a fish liking warmth before all, and therefore retire, in my 

 climate — Northern Germany — from October to May, into the 

 deepest possible mud in the ground of our carp lakes and 

 seem to slumber there in ent&c apathy. They spawn with 

 us in May, June and July, the special time depending en- 

 tirely upon the warmth of the water. We arc of the opinion 

 that" tbev need for spawning something like 1.5 degrees 

 Reaumer— about GO degrees Fahrenheit." All this is rather 

 siiperthious for you, but now I may be able to give you good 

 hints. 



We put branches of difCereht trees — evergreens or others — 

 in the pond a short time before hatching begins, fixing one 

 end of the branch in the soO, and leaving it swing in the 



pond some six inches below the surface. As soon as the carp 

 begin to spawn, they fix their glutinous— adhesive— ;eggs in 

 innumerable quantity upon the "branches we had put in; hut, 

 alas! at the same time JIi-. and Jlrs. Carp begin to cat eager- 

 ly their own eggs. It is only in consequence of the immense 

 quanlity of eggs they spawn that the carp i^ as plentiful as it 

 is. But as for yoiu- country, which v.; ' _ ' 'I'.cUly 



great quantities of young carp, you cou' 1 1 -r ,ar- 



raiigemenl than to takeout, aftersecin.: ^'ered 



with egtcs. either these branche.s — Ira;. ;.).-.: .i._ i.vjai in a 

 tub of water, in order that the eggs do not get dry— :iaDd 

 bring them to a neighboring pond, quite empty of other fishes, 

 or take out the oktcarp altogether from your spawning pond, 

 and leave this alone to the young ones, which after a short 

 time, will swarm th re by many thousands, and very soon 

 begin to take food of any kind, say conked potatoes or bread. 

 By giving bread constantly my children got our carp so tame 

 that they would come andeat bread from their hands. They 

 get very tame, indeed. 



The best plan is to have many ponds for the carp, all of 

 them beiugarranged in such a way that they can be made 

 entirely dry. That gives yoti the possibility of having the 

 carp divide'd according to their ages— say of one, two, three 

 or four j'ears. 



At fom- years they will grow in your climate to about ten 

 pounds, easily. You know that in rare cases we have carp 

 of thirty or forty pomids, while it is nothing unu.»ufll to have 

 them up to twenty pounds. If 3''0u read German, or have 

 anybody who unclerstands this — my language -I conld send 

 you, by care of Prof. Baird, some books about carp, their 

 breeding and nursing. You know that the Greeks (Aristo- 

 tle) and the old R imans knew this. They came from Italy 

 to Germany m the eleventh century — of course, by the 

 monks, who were the great protectors of fislies. 



In the ponds which "contain your carp of two, three and 

 four years, you will do wisely to keep with them a few vo- 

 racious fishes as yi'.w.t (piiic), 'or similar ones. This seems to 

 prevent their desire to spawn, and therefore assists their 

 quick growing. This principle is generally followed where- 

 ever we have large carp culture in Germany or Austria — Bo- 

 hemia. Beware of having other fishes of a similar family in 

 the same pond with your carp— the crossing gives very bad 

 fishes, full of bones a"nd of bad taste. 



Now, this, my letter, may go. If it reaches yon, I hope 

 you may find it" of a little use. I finish as I begun. I got 

 such kind assistance from your countrymen, that I shall be 

 very glad to be useful to you. Newspapers make now In a 

 few weeks le tour de monde. Let everybody try to make use 

 of them, and be of use through them to mankind. " Good- 

 will to nations " is a beautiful duty. I subscribe myself, 

 VoN Bbhb, 

 President ol the German Fisheries Verein. 



Rixfoed, Fla., Nov. 1. 

 Babok von Bbhb : 



My Dear Sir— Y'our letter under date of the 10th of Octo- 

 ber was forwarded to me through the courtesy of the Fobbst 

 AND Stream, and reached me in due season. Allow me at 

 the outset to express my hearty thanks for your kindness in 

 writing me, as well as for the valuable information you have 

 given. My carp, which are of the scale variety, continue to 

 thrive splendidly a.nd are a maiwel to all who see then'., espe- 

 cially those who saw them when I first procm'cd them in No- 

 vember last, when they were only about three inches long, 

 and who now compare them. Many of them are from fifteen 

 to seventeen inches in length and six to seven inches in 

 breadth. They show no signs as yet of going into winter 

 quarters, coming for their food regularly, ,ind I hope to be 

 succesafnl in carrying them through the cool woailicr without 

 their resorting to "the old habit. I find our uatin-al ponds are 

 not e-vactly fitted for tbeni, as they are generally deep and 

 not easily "drawn oil, with no visible outlet or inlet. Small 

 fish, such as minnows and perch, generally inhal.>it them, 

 which were better destroyed, as they will likely feed upon 

 the eggs. Turtles are also plenty, but we must do the best 

 we caii to destroy the pests. 



Your information that the carp devour their own eggs vras 

 new to me and has suggested the idea to me that possibly at 

 that time they need a difltercnt variety of food, and I shall 

 alioul that time change it to one composed more of meat. At 

 the same time I can protect the bushes on which they have 

 deposited their eggs from their depredations by a wire" fence. 

 I expect they wilfspawn in the early spring, say March or 

 April. I will be nuich obliged to you for any works on theU- 

 culture that you may send me, a.s' I hnve fiieiids who will 

 take pleasure in translat;iug them for me, and ilir- publication 

 of them may benefit others who have the fi^li in other por- 

 tions of tlie"country. You wdl, I am sure, pardon me for the 

 liberty I havf taken in sending a copy of your letter to the 

 Poi'.e"st and Stkea.m for publication, as the information given 

 wdll be valuable to many of its readers and wdl very likely be 

 copied into many other'papers, as the subject is one that is 

 attracting much attention. Your allusion to the assistance 

 that has been afforded you by my countrymen is certainly a 

 compliment to them an'dl feel warranted in saying that, as in 

 the past, they will in the future do all in their power to pro- 

 mote and strengthen the ' ' beautiful duty," to which you have 

 so pleasantly referred. 

 Allow me to subsaibe myself, very truly yours, 



Geo. C. Rixford. 

 While in Berlin last summer in charge of the Fish Cidtural 

 Exhibit of the United States, I obtained, by request of Prof. 

 Baird, Ihe rale of growth of the carp in that comitry from 

 throe of the pronunent fish cidturists iheie which, compared 

 with the above ral es, shows that the change of climate has in- 

 creased its ratio of growth here. Mr. Robert Eckardt, trout 

 and crtrp culturist'at Luebeuchen, gave tlie following aver- 

 age : 

 ' Carp at 1 year 10 @ 12 centimetres = 4^ © .5 inches. 



" 2 " 15 @ 18 " = 6 @ 7^ inches. 



" 3 " lib. 



" 4 " 3 lbs. 

 Mr. Herman Haack, Director of the Imperial Fish Cultural 

 Establiahnient at Hueningen, a.nswered questions as follows; 

 Carp at 1 year 1 to 8 inches 



" 2 " i to I lbs. 



•• 3 " U to 3 lbs. 



" 4 " 3 to 5 lbs. 

 Depending upon temperature and food. 

 In this connection it must be remembered that Germany has 

 a cooU r summer, and as the carp grows, according to otu- best 

 evidence, in direct proportion to"the warmth of the water it 

 is diffienlt Ui believe these accounts of its wonderful growth 

 in America with its Ijroiling temperature, most especially in 

 our Southern States. A most convincing proof ihatil thrives 

 best in warm .siiuaiions is the fact that in Germany a carp 

 pond received the condensed water from a low pressuie steam 



