MUSSELS OF CENTRAL AND NORTHERN MINNESOTA. 5 



Lake in Todd County, Battle Lake in Ottertail County, and Lake 

 Minnewaska at Glenwood in Pope County are very favorably situ- 

 ated as regards railroad facilities, natural surroundings and con- 

 ditions, and the proper fish to serve as hosts for the young mussels. 

 The State of Minnesota has a fish hatchery at Glenwood, on the shore 

 of Lake Minnewaska. Every spring when the wall-eyed pike are 

 seined out of the lake to get their spawn there are always caught 

 with them in the net large numbers of sunfish and yellow perch. 

 These are the best fish that could be obtained for carrying young 

 mussels belonging to the mucket {Lampsilis) group. It would be a 

 simple matter to load these fish with the young of some mussel possess- 

 ing high commercial value before putting them back into the lake. 

 It is confidently believed that in this way the lake could be stocked 

 in a few years with an abundance of good button mussels, and it 

 would be a simple matter to keep up the supply when once it was 

 established. If the experiment proved successful at Glenwood, the 

 other lakes could be similarly stocked. It is the isolation of these 

 lakes and the fact that fish could not get into them out of the rivers 

 at the proper season of the year that has prevented the mussels from 

 becoming naturally established there. 



^ RECOMMENDATIONS. 



As a direct result of the information obtained during this pre- 

 liminary survey, the following recommendations can be made: 



1. Suitable fishways should be provided for the free passage of 

 fish around the 35-foot power dam 4 miles below Fergus Falls on 

 the Eed Eiver, around all the dams within the city itself, and around 

 the power dam across the Mississippi 9 miles below Bemidji- Mussels 

 multiply well only where there is an abundance of fish. If the fish 

 are stopped by a dam the mussels above the dam may not be able to 

 multiply, and hence will disappear after the first generation. 



2. It will be advisable to try the introduction of certain mussels 

 into such of the more conveniently situated lakes as seem best suited 

 for them. The United States Biological Station at Fairport, Iowa, 

 and the local State hatcheries can profitably combine in this. The 

 successful introduction of valuable shells into even a few of Minne- 

 sota's countless lakes would not injure the fishing at all, but rather 

 improve it, and would add materially to the resources of the State. 



3. It would be advisable, by the introduction of valuable button 

 shells, to increase the present percentage of mucket and pig- toe mus- 

 sels in the Eed Eiver of the North and in the St. Croix and Minne- 

 sota Eiver drainages. Only muckets could be propagated in the 

 upper Mississippi, since the Falls of St. Anthony at Minneapolis 



