12, 189S.I 
FOREST ANt) STREAM. 
not_ the pubJic sentiment in Canada been , so sttong 
a^cainst exporting sahiion eggs to the UiHted States. 
This feeling was. howcA-cr. so strong that the enter- 
prise had to be abandoned, bnt the Canadian Govern- 
nient took it up soon afterwards and sold salmon eggs 
to this country for the enormpus price of $45 a thou- 
sand, or $1,000 a gallon. 
T must not forget to mention, as among tlitJ niost 
important events of the early days of fishcnltnre in this 
countr.y, that the Sttite of New Hampshire, with siiigidar 
fiwesight. established a fish commission in 1864. the 
same year that Seth Green Ijegan operations in Cale- 
donia. New Hampshire was soon followed by Massa- 
chusetts and other States, and in t87t the United Slates 
Commission of Fish and Fisheries, through ttie efforts 
of Prof, Spencer F. Baird, was created by Congress. 
The American Fishctdturists' Association, now the 
American Fisheries Society, had been formed in 1870. 
B3' this time there wcr-e also innumerable trout cul- 
turists in the field, and fishculture in the United States 
may be said to have passed the days of its infancy and 
to be fairly on its feet. 
Tn looking back o\'er those early years and contrasting 
them with the present, when such an immense mass of 
information is available, one is forcibly .struck by the 
almost universal ignorance on the subject that prevailed 
at that time. This was true not only of people generally, 
but of well-informed men also; for even scientists who 
rightly deserved the name, and university graduates, and 
accomplished scholars who prided themselves on the va- 
riety of their knowledge, and reading men who kept up 
with the magazines and newspapers, could tell you noth- 
ing of this new art of fishculture. 
Y«t this was not so very .surprising, for books ha^' 
not yet been published in this country on the subject, 
magazine articles about it had not appeared; cyclope- 
dias did not contain the information, or at most only 
the merest outlines of it, and unless one happened to 
come across tlie not easily accessible reports of special- 
ists there was no avenue open to the public by which 
more than a superficial knowledge of the subject could 
be reached. 
People generally were so utterly ignorant, indeed, of 
the whole .subject that almost any story told about fish 
eggs would pass unchallenged. As an illustration of 
this, I heard some one tell an inquisitive but intelligent 
man that trout eggs were hatched by putting them under 
a hen in the barn, and the inquirer knew so little about 
it that he actually did not venture to express a doubt, 
for fear that he should display his ignorance. The man 
was not a scholar, it is true, but nevertheless some of 
the best informed men knew little more than he did 
about fishculture, for the simple reason that the knowl- 
edge was almost inaccessible to the people. How differ- 
ent from the present day, when the minute fish-life of 
the very bottom of the oceans is closely and thoroughly' 
studied, and the fi.sh food furnished by the microscopic 
life of the fresh-water lakes is measured and classified. 
To go back in memory to those early days is not only 
to enter the enchantment that distance brings, but it is 
also to return to .what was a real enchantment then. 
It seems as if we should never feel again — I know I am 
expressing the feeling of all the early experimenters in 
hatching fish — it seems that we should never feel again, 
and we probably never shall feel again, the thrill of 
excitement that tingled to our finger ends when we first 
saw the little black speck in the unhatched embryo 
which told us that our egg was alive. It was one of 
the dearest sights on earth to us then. And when the 
first little trout emerged frotu his shell and wriggled 
in the water, why were we so excited and elated? Was 
it because that little fish opened up to us a new world 
of promise and because we had a dim vision of the 
countless multitudes of living creatures that this little 
embryo was the insignificant forerunner of? I suppose 
it was something of the sort. And now, after those long- 
years have passed and we coldly watch under a micro- 
scope, with ,a half scientific interest, the development of 
this little black speck named by scientists the "choroid 
pigment," we can hardly belicA'C that such a commonplace, 
matter-of-fact al?air could have stirred our feelings and 
our imagination as it did once, when the sight and sen- 
sation were both new, and the world of promise before 
us was untried and unknown. 
Recalling those early years, two figures .stand out in 
memorj^ more prominently than all others. One is the 
figure of a strong-featured, broad-browed man of rugged 
frame and rugged coimtenance. He had the bearing and 
the look of a man who thought no struggle too severe 
for him, and no foe too formidable. He looks the 
strong man that he is. He is of the Zachary Taylor 
rough-and-ready type, but withal he has a hearty and 
genial manner, and a frank and honest nature looks out 
of his eyes, that show that no shallow mind lies behind 
them. 
.Every fishculturist knows whom I mean. I had pre- 
viously visited Seth Green at his home in Caledonia, but 
it was not till I met and assisted him at Holj^oke in 
1867 that his strong personality impressed itself on me. 
He was there conducting his first experiment in hatch- 
hig shad. He was entirely alone when I visited him, 
and his first attempts at hatching had just ended in sig- 
nal failure. The peculiar character of the eggs and the 
peculiar treatment required for them had baffled for a 
time even his keen-sighted genius, and he had in despair 
almost decided to give it up and i-eturn home. The 
fishermen he had hired to help him were laughing at 
him for what the)'- called his foolishness. But although 
alone and depressed in spirits, and with no one to offer 
a word of encouragement, Seth Green kept on, and with 
his dogged per.sistence and determination fought and 
overcame one difficulty after another, as they met him, 
until at last he was rewarded, as the world knows, with 
overwhelming success. Perhaps I may be allowed to 
add that a warm friendship sprang up about this time 
between Seth Green and myself which continued to tlie 
dav of his death. 
It was a pleasant thing to see the change in Green's 
spirit that came with his first success in hatching shad. 
It seemed a little thing — nothing but some little, delicate 
embryos appearing in the frail eggs that he was work- 
ing over. Little it was. but it was the herald of illimi- 
table possibilities which possibly the man himself did 
not realize. But however that may be, it restored his 
spirits and made him almost in.stantly a changed i-nan, 
T once asked Gen, Phil Sheridan Avhat was the most 
thrilling moment of his career during the War of the 
Reliellion. Gen. Sheridan answered, laconically : "When 
the tide turned at the battle of Winchester." I think that 
perhaps Green's feelings at Holyoke, when his first shad 
showed signs of life, might have been soniewiiat smiaar. 
He was attemptin,g what no one else' had ever thought 
of accomplishing, on which Vast result.s were dei)end- 
ing. The eyes of all the fishcultural world were on 
him. Tlius far he had failed. He was for the time beitig 
defeated. Then the tide turned, and almost literally in 
a moment the whole thing was changed ami he was vic- 
torious in a great battle, the far-reaching residts of which 
will doubtless survive even the great nation that Sheri- 
dan fought for. 
Green's strong traits of character were imt the only 
thing about him that called attention to the man. for 
imited with these were a sound judgment and many rare 
gifts of genius. He had the happy faculty of seeing and 
fixing his mind on the one essential point which was 
to be obtained, to the exclusion of everything else, and 
he had the fine discrimination which enables one to 
retain all the means necessary to accomplish the object 
and to eliiTiinate all others. This enable him to reduce 
his inventions and methods to the utn-iost simplicity 
without impairing their efficiency, the sure sign of 
genius. Green's famous shad hatching box, than which 
nothing more simple and effective has ever been in- 
vented for the hatching of fish, is a good illustration of 
this genius; and his world-renowned skill at lly-casting, 
rifle shooting and fish catching are only further illustra- 
tions of the same thing. 
I regret that time and space forbid me giving any- 
thing more than this very imperfect sketch of this re- 
markable man; but I must hasten on. 
The other figure which .stands out most prominently 
in my memory, as I recall the early days of American 
fishculture, is that of one who has been called a plain 
man. He was a plain man indeed, but one who was 
made after nature's largest pattern of men. Fie was 
large in mental caliber and large in physical frame, large 
in his broad sympathies and in his wide scope of vision, 
large in his comprehensive grasp of great aims, and 
large in his capacity for great undertakings— large in 
everything, but small in nothing. 
You at once recognize, I know, Prof. Spencer F. 
Baird, the first United States Conmiissioner of Fish 
and Fisheries. 
The mere mention of Prof. Baird's name strikes a 
chord of dear memories in the hearts of all who knew 
him. No man of our time has left a purer memory, a 
more stainless name or a more animated or enduring 
influence-Over his special field of labor than Prof. Baird. 
Pie was loved by those who knew him when he was liv- 
ing; he is revered by those who have survived him. 
Prof. Baird lived in a higher plane of life and breathed 
a purer atmosphere than most men. Quiet and unas- 
suming, with a nature as gentle as a child's, his natural 
superiority never failed to show itself when he was with 
other men, not even among the distinguished men who 
gathered in the winter at the national capital. Yet he was 
thoughtful and considerate of his subordinates, and al- 
ways ready to give his meed of praise of any work well 
done b3^ his humble.st employee. Prof. Baird had the 
enviable gift not only of endearing every one to him 
who came in contact with him, but of inspiring them 
with his own enthusiasm and energy. This made con- 
gressmen vote him all the appropriations that he asked 
for; for it was a common saying at Washington that 
Congress gave Prof. Baird everything that he wanted. 
Like a good general, he had the personal welfare of his 
men at heart while he was Fish Commissioner, and they 
in turn wanted to do everything in their power for him, 
which, doubtless, was one of the secrets of his great 
success. It is a fact that his employees in the Fi.sh Com- 
mission would voluntarily work a great deal harder for 
Prof. Baird than they would for themselves. This fact 
is prevalent for another saying at Washington at that 
time, that Prof. Baird's men were the busiest workers 
in all the departments. It was the inspiration of this 
patient, disinterested, tireless, kind-hearted and lovable 
man whose work they were doing that made them work 
so well, and also made their work a pleasure. 
It is unnecessary to say that Prof. Baird possessed ex- 
traordinary mental endowments, but I perhaps may men- 
tion one or two, as they are so rare. He had a quick- 
ness of apprehension that sometimes seemed supernat- 
ural. For instance, he would glance down a printed 
page and cornprehend in a moment what would take 
others several minutes to read. 
He had a marvelous meniory, not only retentive of 
everything- intrusted to it, but quick to call up anything 
that was wanted when it was wanted— a quality which 
most of us know well how to appreciate. His mind 
was also of the clearest type. No complications ever 
seerned to confuse him; he never became involved dur- 
ing his conversation, no matter what Avere the intrica- 
cies of the subject. His mind, like his placid temper, 
never seemed to be rutfled or distm-bed. Extraordinary 
as his mental faculties were, he had evidently added to 
their efficiency by severe discipline, for he possessed 
that infallible mark of a well-trained mind, of having 
all of his great and diversified stores of knowledge 
classified and grouped together in his brain according 
to subjects, so that he could call up his whole knowledge 
of any subject at a moment's notice. Another remarkable 
thing about Prof. Baird's mental composition was that 
with a thoughtful, scientific cast of mind were united 
qualities of the most practical character. Prof. Baird 
was a scientific man by nature. He loved science and 
scientific studies; but at the same time no man had a 
sounder judgment or a clearer head in the management 
of practical affairs than he did. It is very rare to see 
scientific and practical qualities of mind united in such 
an eminent degree as they were in Prof. Baird's. 
Prof. Baird was gifted with still another unusual men- 
tal endowment which reminds one strongly of one of 
the traits of the first Napoleon. With that comprehen- 
siveness of mind which takes in the broad features and 
large general outlines of a great enterprise, he combined, 
as Napoleon did, a capacity for close and thorough at- 
tention to all the details of a sirbject down to the mi- 
nutest item necessary to success. This combination, as 
we all know, is a rare ojije.. As an illustration of Prof, 
Baird's wonderfully relbrttive memory and easy grasp 
of details, rts well as his .gift, also remarkable, for a 
rapid dispatch of practical work, I may mention a little 
incident that occurred at Calais,. Me., where I visited 
in 1872. and which has fastened itself oa my mind ever 
since. He had received twenty-scA^en letters by mail 
of the day before— I remembered the exact number that 
he tf)ld n-ie he had received — and the next forenoon after 
breakfast he called in his stenographer for the purpose 
of answering them. As I very naturally rose to leave the 
room he kindly invited me to remain and be seated, 
and I .shall never forget the impression whichthe .sub.se- 
quent answering of those letters left on me. 
Assun-iing his customary attitude, when On his feet, of 
holding his hands behind him, one Avrist grasped by the 
(jthcr liand, he leisurely walked up and down the room, 
dictating to the stenographer the answers one after an- 
other to all his letters. He did not, to my knowledge, 
refer to one of the letters he had received, either to as- 
certain its contents or to .get the address of the writer, 
but proceeded froni one letter to another till all were 
fini.shed. And, further, during this time he never showed 
tlie slightest hesitation, nor did his countenance betray 
any signs pf mental effort or confusion. It was a re- 
markable feat of memory, and a methodical dispatch 
of business details which I cannot forbear to mention. 
In our subsequent acquaintance and correspondence, 
Avhich Avas very extended, both personal and othcial, his 
letters were always marked by great kindness of heart 
and thoughtful consideration, which, it is needless to say, 
warmly endeared him to me. It is a. great pleasure to 
n-ie now to think that the United States Fi.sh Commis- 
sion station that I located and built up three successive 
times, on the McCloud River, in California, has kept 
the name which I gave many years ago to the little post- 
office on the river, and as Baird's Station contributes its 
mite to perpetuating the name of the great first LTnited 
States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries. 
I said that there were two figures Avhich early 
association Avith fi.shculture called up very forcibly 
to my mind. There is also a third. It is of a 
man who has never been in America, yet whose 
love for America, whose admiration for American 
fishculture, and whose influence on fishcultural work in 
America, have been very marked. I mean the Count von 
Behr. With a thorough love of fishculture, and devoted 
to it with an unusually enthusiastic nature which spe- 
cially fitted him for inspiring others with his oAvn love 
for it, llerr von Behr was to Germany in liis field of 
labor AAdiat Prof. Baird Avas to America. He was for 
many years president of the Deittsche Fischerei Verein, 
the national fishcultural organization of Germany, and 
during his Avhole connection Avith it he Avas the life of 
the association. He Avas-also the animating spirit of 
the great International Fisheries Exposition in Berlin, 
which will forever remain memorable in the annals of the 
world's fishcultural history. 
Though of a Avholly different type from Prof. Baird, 
he ncArertheless possessed qualities AAdiich caused his in- 
fluence to overshadow all other fishculturists in his own 
countr3\ as Prof. Baird's did in this country, and made 
him facile princeps in conducting- the cause of fishcultural 
development in Germany. 
It was my privilege to carry on a delightful corre- 
spondence with Herr A'on Behr for several years. Drop- 
ping all official forms, and indeed all fortnality what- 
ever, his letters Avere earnest, confidential and full of 
enthusiasm. They expressed the same love and admira- 
tion for Prof. Baird that Americans felt for him at home, 
and never lacked in expression of his great admiration 
of American fishculture. They also recorded his sad 
domestic bereaA^ements, and told how, after the- loss of 
his three sons, he had resolved to devote the rest of his 
life to the cause of fishciflture in Germany. 
I am aware that much criticism has been expressed 
because Von Behr's name has been given by Americans 
to an European trout since its introduction into this 
country; bttt whatever may be said of the judiciousness 
of the act, no one can deny that it was a fitting compli- 
ment to a man Avho richly deserves the honor, nor can 
any one deny that it reflects kindh^ feeling which sought 
in this Avay to recognize American indebtedness to Von 
Behr, and to perpetuate in America the name of the 
distinguished German fishculturist. The Count von Behr 
was a generous. Avarm-hearted, lovable man. and his con- 
tributions in labor and in influence to the cause of fish- 
culture can never be measured. 
He was one of the three who formed the great trium- 
virate of the early history of fishculture — Seth Green, 
Spencer F. Baird, Heinrich von Behr. 
Hopeful as Ave are of the future fishculture work 
of the world, we nevertheless confess to feeling a pre- 
sentintent that 'Sve ne'er shall look upon their like 
again." I regret that this disjointed and imperfect sketch 
must suffice for the present for a subject which deserves 
better treatment. 
_ I would like to speak of the Hon. Frank Buckland, of 
Flngland. who did so much to encourage fishculture in 
Great Britain; of Prof. Milner, Avho Avas my zealous 
and conscientious colleague until his death; of Hon. 
Robert B. Roosevelt, who edited and pubHshed the first 
iiewspaper column in this country exclusively devoted to 
fishculture; of Hon. Theodore Lyman, of Massachu- 
setts, the leading spirit in the first fishculture movement 
in New England; of John Bellows, of New Hampshire, 
who took the first step in this country toAvard the public 
recognition of fishculture; of Gov. Seymour, of New 
York, who gave his powerftd influence to its support, 
early in the 70s; and of many others who contributed 
more or less prominently to its early development— but 
both time and space preclude the possibility of this, and 
I can only congratulate my brother fishcidturists that 
there are so many devoted workers in the cause still 
living to fill in the places left vacant by their faithful 
predecessors, and who have gone to their reward. 
Take inventory of the good things in this issue of 
Forest and Stream. Recall what a fund was given 
last week. Count on what is to come next week. 
Was there ever in all the world a more abundant 
weekly store of sportsmen's reading? 
