THE GAME BREEDER 



13 



■methods have given better varieties of 

 corn and wheat, better varieties of apples 

 and strawberries and better varieties of 

 potatoes and melons, but almost nothing 

 lias been done, particularly in America, 

 to develop the streams, lakes and ponds 

 and to improve the quality of food pro- 

 ducts that they do and could be made 

 to produce. 



The Chinese and Japanese are credited 

 with having accomplished wonders, in 

 the development of goldfish, in the pro- 

 duction of rich shades of color and 

 imique designs in form. The unculti- 

 vated wild goldfish is of a dull olivaceous 

 green. The beautiful shades of red, gold, 

 silver and black, and the various odd 

 designs in shape found among these 

 fishes, have been artificially produced and 

 propagated by natural selection, the fish 

 having been kept in ponds and handled 

 and bred with as much care as any other 

 stock that was to be improved under the 

 influences of domestication. Nature has 

 imposed no barrier, so far as I know, 

 that would prevent the development of 

 many of our own game and food fishes 

 in quality, size and hardiness, provided 

 they were subjected to the same intelli- 

 gent care and oversight that has de- 

 veloped our best varieties of vegetable 

 and animal forms of life. In Germany, 

 and' many other places "in Europe; the 

 rearing of fish and the various problems 

 connected with fish culture have been in 

 the past and are at the present time re- 

 ceiving a very considerable amount of 

 attention. The rearing of fish for food 

 purposes and for profit is looked upon 

 much in the same light as the rearing of 

 poultry and live stock in general. Not 

 only are the streams utilized, but all nat- 

 ural ponds, lakes and sheets of water 

 have been improved and are being used 

 for fish-culture purposes. 



In addition to this, I am told by some 

 of our good American Germans who 

 have recently visited the fatherland, that 

 thousands of pieces of ground that were 

 swampy or otherwise unprofitable have 

 been converted into fish ponds and are 

 now made to yield fish food products of 

 great value to the masses of people. 



For the purpose of consideration, the 

 subject of ponds naturally divides itself 

 into two parts — natural and artificial. 



Natural ponds in the state of Kansas 

 are not very numerous. Most of them 

 have been formed by rivers and creeks 

 that have changed their channels and 

 left bodies of water in their old beds. 

 Some of these sheets of water make fair- 

 ly good fish ponds, but as a rule they are 

 more or less subject to overflow from 

 the adjacent streams during periods of 

 high water and are liable to lose most 

 of their water, or even to go dry, during 

 periods of drought. Such bod'ies of 

 water are very unsatisfactory for fish- 

 culture purposes. 



There are other natural ponds formed 

 by springs that run into .natural basins, 

 and still others that owe their existence 

 to natural basins that catch the water 

 from adjacent sloping grounds. These 

 latter are called sky ponds by the Ger- 

 mans, as all the water that is drained 

 into them comes directly, in rains and 

 snows, from the sky. These natural 

 ponds usually have muddy bottoms, with 

 an accumulation of old leaves, weeds and 

 various kinds of trash that have blown 

 or have been thrown or washed into their 

 waters. Many of them have old logs, 

 stumps, fallen trees, tree tops, brush and 

 other similar rubbish in them. Some of 

 these natural ponds also have heavy 

 growths of vegetation, including grasses, 

 weeds and mosses. Most of these nat- 

 ural ponds are more or less stocked with 

 fish of one or more varieties ; a pond of 

 any size that has had water in it for 

 six months or a year usually contains 

 fish of some kind, more often catfish or 

 sunfish. If the ponds are large, with 

 some depth of water, carp, buffalo, shad, 

 channel cat and, sometimes, crappie and 

 bass, are found in them, as well as vari- 

 ous kinds of minnows. Some of these 

 natural ponds, where the water supply is 

 not too irregular, produce and support 

 a good many fish and are quite satisfac- 

 tory. As a rule, however, they are hard 

 to\ manage, most of them being too low 

 to be drained, or if it is possible to drain 

 them there is no water to refill them. 

 Muddy bottomed ponds that cannot be 

 drained and cleaned afford poor places 

 for fish to spawn ; and this is especially 

 true of the larger game fishes. Natural 

 ponds are usually well stocked with 

 turtles, gars, bullfrogs, snakes, all of 



