September, 1912 
Pa 
LW views of a Beautiful Seine 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
of bronze and crystal. 
327 
The Breeding and Care of Gold Fish 
By Ida D. Bennett 
Photographs by T. C. Turner 
N breeding and care of gold fish a pastime 
the initial undertaking and the rapidity 
with which this class of fish increase. Of 
course if one is to embark in the-under- 
taking from a strictly commercial standpoint, and aim to 
produce fish by the hundreds of thousands, as do the big 
hatcheries, then the outlay will be considerable, but for the 
private individual or amateur who wishes, first of all, to 
enjoy the possession of these delightful little pets, and 
incidentally, to have them pay expenses from the start, they 
are all that one can desire in entertaining a hobby. 
It is really surprising the amount of these little beauties 
which are sold annually in the department stores of the 
country; it is a very small dealer indeed who does not sell 
several thousand a year, and a dealer who wrote me re- 
cently to get prices on my fish stated that he wished to pur- 
chase one hundred thousand of them. 
While the possessor of two or three fish as pets will, 
usually, be content with a globe or aquarium in the house, 
those desiring to rear the fish, in however small a scale, 
should have pools or ponds in the open air. Usually the 
formal Lily pool now so frequently found in all extensive 
gardens will answer admirably for the rearing of a limited 
number of fish. A pool twelve feet in diameter will afford 
abundant room for a half dozen.mature fish, and from 
these one may, with the minimum of care, expect a hundred 
is found where one can work profitably» 
because of the small outlay required in 
young fry by Fall. Many more would be secured were it 
‘not for the penchant of all fish to feed on the spawn or 
eggs, and what is still more disastrous, of the young spawn, 
themselves, to feed on the eggs and tiny fish; for this rea- 
son one seldom secures more than the first two or three 
hatches. Of course this could be avoided by having two 
or more pools and removing the small fish to the second as 
soon as large enough to capture with a net, but where one 
considers the use of a single pool this is not practicable. 
Another alternative is to stretch a screen of fine meshed 
galvanized wire across the pool, so shutting off a portion 
into which the younger fish can escape. 
Where one has no poo! but wishes to construct one, the 
ordinary cement Lily pool will be most satisfactory as an- 
swering the double purpose of growing Water Lilies and 
fish, thus gaining a double value from the investment. ‘The 
usual pool is twe feet in depth, one foot of which is taken 
up with earth. 
In such a pool the presence of growing vegetation aerates 
the water and keeps it in a healthy condition for the life 
of the fish, the green scum or alge which will gather as 
soon as the water is warm is composed of minute vegetable 
life which is food for the tiny fish and should not be re- 
moved. If this were present in the indoor globes the fish 
would fare much better. Water in such a pool where the 
conditions are natural is full of minute animal life which 
supplies the young and grown fish with food, so that nutri- 
ment is unnecessary, but one will always wish to give to 
