84 THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 
operated successfully for awhile, but depended to a 
large extent upon the flow of water and were not 
self-cleaning of the debris which always follows the 
flow of water. Branches of trees or small logs 
would come down and hit the paddles, either break- 
ing them or clogging them and stopping the revolu- 
tion of the screen. Then the same complaint was reg- 
istered by the ditch owner as before. 
The problem then was to find a screen which 
would eliminate these objectionable features and 
still at the same time turn the fish back into the 
original stream. The “Aitken Self-Cleaning Revoly- 
ing Screen” has solved these problems. It does not 
depend for its motive power upon any particular 
stage of water, has no paddles in the stream itself, 
and is a complete and effective barrier to the prog- 
ress of the fish. 
Millions of young trout fry are annually flooded 
onto the irrigated lands of the State, and as the water 
is absorbed by the soil the fish die. Unquestionably, 
this is the fundamental reason for the annual de- 
crease in the run of steelheads in the Rogue River. 
There has been more or less controversy over this 
question for a number of years past, and some of the 
sportsmen attribute the decreased run to the methods 
employed in fishing at the mouth of the river, but in 
our candid, honest and sincere judgment this is not 
the significant reason. 
A number of years ago the waters of the Rogue 
were free to run from the headwaters to the ocean 
without being used for irrigation purposes, but 
within the last decade, irrigation projects have been — 
developed until now more than four hundred projects 
