THE GAME BREEDER 



109 



FRESH WATER FISH CULTURE 



W. E. Meehan. 



Ex-Commissioner of Fisheries of Pennsylvania; Superintendent of the 

 Philadelphia Fairmount Park Aquarium. 



Copyright 1913 by W. E. Meehan. 



Fish culture for commercial pur- 

 poses dates back to ancient times. Lu- 

 cullus, the famous Roman emperor, 

 general and epicure, along with other 

 Roman patricians of his day, cultivated 

 fish in ponds for their own use and 

 for the market. Hundreds of years 

 before this the Chinese reared fish by 

 gathering naturally deposited spawn 

 and hatching it in ponds. Pond cul- 

 ture for carp was practiced in Ger- 

 many during the Crusades; but fish 

 culture by the so-called artificial ex- 

 pression of the eggs from the female 

 was not discovered in Europe until the 

 latter part of the fifteenth century, and 

 not put into pracical use until between 

 1840 and 1850. The science was in- 

 troduced into the United States in 

 1860. 



All forms of fish culture are nothing 

 more than an intelligent assistance to 

 Nature, by the conservation of what 

 would otherwise be a huge waste. Of 

 the thousands and sometimes millions 

 of eggs given a single fish it is rare 

 that more than ten per cent, of those 

 deposited under natural conditions are 

 hatched; usually it is much less. It is 

 the aim of the fish culturist to hatch 

 from seventy to ninety per cent, of the 

 total number, and by the adoption of 

 certain protective measures start a 

 larger percentage of infant fish to- 

 wards maturity than it would be pos- 

 sible for the parent fish to do. 



At present most of the fish cultural 

 work in this country is done by the 

 National Government and by the 

 States. A number of sportsmen's or- 

 ganizations are engaged in fish cultural 

 work, and some private individuals 

 carry it on as a commercial enterprise. 

 Recently, however, there are signs of 

 an awakening interest among the peo- 

 ple in fish culture for profit. Pioneers 

 have reduced fish culture to a scientific 



basis, and in somie lines the business 

 presents as few risks as in any other 

 form of live stock raising. The out- 

 look is that in a few years there will 

 be as many persons engaged in fish cul- 

 ture as there are now in bee culture 

 or chicken farming. 



Fish culturists employ three methods 

 of rearing fish. There are pond cul- 

 ture, trough and tray culture and jar 

 culture. Fish from which, for unknown 

 reasons, the eggs cannot be pressed, 

 and fish which can deposit their own 

 eggs and fertilize them as well as man 

 can by his methods, are reared by pond 

 culture. Where fish eggs are large 

 and heavy and not easily moved by 

 hatchery water currents, the trough 

 and tray culture is employed. Where 

 fish eggs are light and procurable in 

 vast abundance jar culture is resorted 

 to. Among the fish handled by pond 

 culture are bass and cat fish ; by trough 

 and tray, the trouts, and by jar cul- 

 ture, the shad and white fish. It is by 

 the last two that the National Govern- 

 ment and the States secure their vast 

 annual outputs of fish. By pond cul- 

 ture hundreds of thousands of a single 

 species are given life annually ; by 

 trough and tray, millions are produced, 

 and by jar work hundreds of millions. 



Black Bass Culture — Suitable Sites 

 AND Water. 



Both the small and the large mouth 

 bass may be propagated for commer- 

 cial and sporting purposes. The first- 

 named is more generally desirable in 

 the northern part of the United States. 

 It is the true black bass, the mighty 

 king of fresh water fishes, is also the 

 more difficult of the two species for 

 the fresh water fish culturist to handle. 

 Comparatively little t'-ouble has been 

 encountered in the cultivation of the 

 large mouth bass, but to produce sue- 



