70 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 27, 1906.- 
§m m(d §it 0r ^isliing. 
A Natural Hatchery for Trout. 
From the Report of the New York Comraia&ioners of Fisheries, Game 
and Forests 
This paper is written to describe a hatchery in which 
trout eggs are hatched by natural process, although the 
fish are under restraint, and the term natural hatchery is 
used in contradistinction to artificial hatchery in which 
trout eggs taken from the fish by hand arc hatched on 
trays in troughs of running water and constantly watched 
by hatchery attendants. In a natural hatchery the trout 
are not handled by men during the spawnnig season; 
and the eggs, after they are deposited naturally, and the 
fry, after they are hatched, are unmolested as much as 
though the fish were wild fish spawning in wild waters, 
imtil such time as the fry are removed from the hatch- 
ery to the rearing ponds to be fed and grown to finger- 
lings or larger fish. In State work, where every year 
there is a greater demand for trout fry and finger- 
lings than the State can supply, every egg that can be 
obtair.td is utilized and every poss'ble efYort is made to 
obtain eggs outside of those furnished by fish in the stock 
ponds at the various hatcheries. Wild waters are drawn 
upon, and a few private waters, controlled by individ- 
uals or associations, furnish trout eggs to the State with 
the understanding that a certain per cent, of the fry shall 
be returned to their waters, while the State has the bal- 
ance for general distribution. Under these circumstances 
a natural hatchery would not serve the purposes of this 
Commission, for it is not pretended that in a natural 
hatchery economy is practiced in the number of eggs 
obtained from the fish or the number of frv hatched 
from the eggs. By law the Fisheries, Game and Forest 
Commission is forbidden to plant fry or fish reared 
at the expense of the State in waters closed to public 
fishing, and owners of private preserves, if they wish to 
add to their stock of fish, must buy them or rear them. 
To erect a hatchery on the plan of a State hatchery, even 
though it be on a much smaller scale, is expensive, and to 
spawn fish artificially, and care for the eggs and fry for a 
period of several months requires constant labor, and 
labor means an outlay of money. Only experienced men 
can do the work well, and in the best equipped and best 
managed hatcheries, unforseen accidents may arise and 
disease may appear, and often it is cheaper to buy trout 
than to rear them. 
_ A hatchery that runs itself, with no artificial spawn- 
ing, no egg picking, no pipes to repair or replace, no 
lieat to maintain to warm the men employed, no troughs 
to tar and no trays to renew; in short, a hatchery with 
no men or troughs or pipes or heat in it is quite a differ- 
ent matter, and one that may be considered when the 
other js out of the question. 
During the past year I have received inquiries from 
more than a dozen different sources, two from fishing 
clubs in Canada, upon the subject of inexpensive fish 
hatcheries that may be maintained at moderate co.^t. antl 
I have selected one of two natural fish hatcheries be- 
longing to fishing clubs on Long Island to be illustrated 
and described to answer the inquiries, and doubtless 
other clubs or owners of private fish preserves may see 
in such a natural hatchery the means of keeping up the 
fishing in or restocking their waters 
Trout are cannibals, and when confined in circum- 
scribed waters, lacking an abundance of food, eat the 
ova of one another from the spawning beds ' and the 
fry of all indiscriminately to a greater or less extent 
Most of such casualties are obviated in a natural hatch- 
ery. The hatchery here described and illustrated was de- 
signed and constructed by Commissioner Edward 
Thompson, the Shellfish Commissioner of this State and 
I know of but two more like it, both constructed under 
his direction; 3n4 ft is as simple in its operation as A B 
C, for you have only to lift the screen at the proper time 
and the trout and the v/ater do the rest. The ponds 
shown in the plan in a series were dug in a depression 
between two ridges, and are fed from springs on either 
side, and from an artesian well at the head of the smaller 
or upper pond. The ponds shown are all used for rear- 
ing trout and outlet into a still larger pond, the margin 
only of which is shown, and in this larger pond the fish- 
ing is done by the club members and their guests. The 
upper pond is used for fry when taken from the hatchery 
and in this they are fed until they grow to fingerlings 
and are moved doAvn into the adjoining pond, and as 
yearlings they go into the next or third pond, or into 
both, according to size, for some grow faster than others, 
and they are sorted to keep the trout of same size in 
one pond. The fourth and fifth ponds are for two-year- 
old fish, and they furnish the breeders, as no trout 
older than two years are now used as breeding fish. 
These facts concerning the management of the fish in the 
ponds are mentioned more to explain why there are five 
ponds in the illustration than with the expectancy that 
any one desiring to rear trout in a similar hatchery will 
follow the exact policy of the club owning the ponds. 
It is true that ponds will have to be provided in which 
to rear fry to yearlings, at least, before they are planted 
in waters to be fished, if the best results are to be ob- 
tained from this system of hatching fish, for the young 
fish must be of sufficient size to be reasonably sure that 
the greater portion of them will escape the maws of 
their larger brethren in the water they are to stock. 
The hatchery shown in the illustration is 400 feet long 
and 8 feet wide, and a cross-section will be found in the 
upper right-hand corner of the plate. At the base of the 
ridge are a number of springs, which feed two of the 
ponds, and the hatchery is constructed over them and 
consists only of a frame of joists 2x5 and 2x7, top and 
sides boarded over, with doors at intervals in the in- 
cline of the roof nearest to the ponds. There is a divi- 
sion in the hatchery about midway of its length, making 
one-half of the hatchery a little higher than the other, 
made necessary by the conformation of the shore. From 
the bottom of the hatchery to the slope of the roof is 
about 6 feet, and 2 feet of this, or a little more, is beneath 
the level of the ground. From the midway division 
the water as it comes from the springs underneath is 
directed to flow in opposite directions by the grade at the 
bottom, and finds its way through sluices with screened 
gates, into the fourth and fifth ponds. About 30 feet 
of either end of the hatchery is divided from the balance 
by upright planks forming a dam, which also holds the 
gravel in place, with an inch or two of fall and the bot- 
tom covered with clean sand, and all that remains is 
covered with white gravel, well screened, and in size 
from, a pea to a pigeon's egg, and 10 inches deep; over 
the gravel the water is 6 to 8 inches in depth, flowing in 
a gentle current toward the ends. Explicit directions are 
not given as to kind and sizes of lumber used in the 
construction of this particular hatchery, as it is expected 
that any one building a similar hatchery may have to 
be governed by different conditions from those found 
on Long Island, but that portion of the structure which 
comes in contact with the water should of choice be built 
of pine lumber and tarred with gas tar, or so much of it 
as is under ground or is washed by the water. Un- 
tarrcd pine may serve if the water is alloyed to thor- 
oughly soak the wood before any hatching is done, but 
tarred wood underground or in the water is preserved for 
a longer time than untarred, and it is safer for fry. An 
experiment with new hemlock planks in such a hatchery 
killed a large number of fry before they could be re- 
moved. 
The outlets of water at either end of the hatchery form 
natural spawning races between it and the breeding 
ponds, and in it the movements of the fish may be gov- 
erned by sliding, screened gates. In the autumn, when 
the trout, moved by the spawning instinct, crowd into 
the races, the screens are lifted, and they are allowed to 
make their way into the hatchery and on to the prepared 
gravel beds. After the trout have spawned, they are 
driven out of the hatchery through the races back to the. 
ponds, and the screens are closed, leaving the naturally! 
impregnated t-ggs u> work uni tluir tjvvn salvation in the 
clean gravel. Alter ilie fry are hatched and the unbilical 
sac with which they are horn i.s absorbed, and they are 
ready to feed, they are induct d to leave the gravel bedsj 
and find their way in the gentle current down on to the 
sand, by lifting the doors in the roof and admitting the 
light from the ends. Once on the sand, the dam formed 
by the upright plank prevents their return to the gravel; 
and whenever it is deemed necessary, they may be moved 
with net and bucket to a rearing pond outside, to be fed ' 
until such time as they may be grown to a size suitable' 
for planting in fishing waters or reserved for breeding : 
purposes. In the hatchery that is illustrated, it is esti-' 
mated that about 300 breeding fish are admitted to the : 
house each year, although the ponds from which they, 
come contain thousands of trout. Those that are de-' 
nied the convenience of the hatchery spawn in ponds, 
and the eggs and fry must submit to risks and perils 
which abound in such places; but I have been surprised 
to find that so many fry as I have seen in the ponds in 
spring and summer have survived the attentions of their 
parents and relatives. 
Nothing is said here about the cost of such a hatchery 
as is described, as the cost will vary in different locali- 
ties, depending upon nearness to lumber supply, and 
price of labor, but with the general plan given in the 
plate, it will not be difficult to make an estimate of the 
probable cost when the location is selected. Such a 
hatchery could be adapted to other water supply than 
one coming in springs from the bottom, but usually 
springs are to be found by searching the shores of trout 
waters, and such a supply of water, with its even flow 
and temperature, is to be preferred to one coming from 
a stream liable to floods, discoloration and impurities. 
About the ;"nly care such a hatchery requires is to 
rake over and scrub the gravel of the beds after the fry 
is removed, and this is done by forking it up at the sides 
while the water runs through it; for, while the gravel re- 
mains white and clean as long as the doors remain 
closed and it is dark inside, the sunlight causes green 
"mold" (desmids, representing a family of minute Algce) 
to form on the gravel, which should be brushed off with 
a broom and dead eggs washed out at the same time. 
Such a hatchery will require but little of one man's at- 
tention for the most part, and the returns from it 
abundantly repay the outlay for construction. There is 
no way to count fry in such a hatchery until they are 
netted out to be placed in an outside rearing pond, but 
last spring I estimated that the hatchery in the illustra- 
tion contained 60,000 or 70,000 strong, healthy fry, and 
it was believed that not many more than 300 trout were 
admitted to spawn in it last fall. The club desires to 
rear only a certain number of trout each year, to turn into 
the fishing pond something more than the number an- 
nually caught; but in a preserve, for instance in the Ad- 
irondacks, it would probably be desired that all the trout 
should be allowed to spawn under cover, and so the 
hatchery would have to be constructed to admit all that 
came to it at breeding time, and therefore the size of 
a hatchery to be erected would have to be based upon 
the number of trout likely to visit it. The hatchery 
that is 400 feet long will accommodate 500 or 600 breed- 
ing trout at one time (as a matter of fact Mr. Thomp- 
son tells me that one year he thinks not less than 1,000 
spawning trout were admitted to the house, and they 
were mixed two and three year old fish, and with this 
number the gravel beds did not appear to be unduly 
crowded), and they should produce 125,000 to 175,000 fry 
if trout of all ages from wild waters are admitted, a 
sufficient number if the survivors are planted to keep 
up the stock in any preserve that I know of in this 
State, when the waters are fished only as preserved 
waters are ordinarily fished. 
A. N. Cheney, State Fishculfurist. 
Shooting Mud Fish. 
The ringing of Mrs. Symns' dinner bell ended a meting 
in William Symns' wagon shop of the coon club, but 
not before Charlie Deuel had proposed for the next day 
a fishing and exploring trip to Dead Creek, the Missis- 
quoi River and marsh and up Charcoal Creek as far as the 
railroad. 
Henry Ford, the chairman that day of the Coon Club 
meeting, and I will explain that the chairman was always 
the man who first secured the only chair the shop con- 
tained; the other members found seats on a splitting 
block, one of Symns" saw-horses, when not in use, the 
corner of the grindstone frame or a board resting across 
an old cracked cast-iron kettle, that held a little water 
to wet the grindstone when in use. 
As I was about to say, Kenry Ford, the chairman, 
wanted to know who was going to do all the rowing that 
would be necessary to make the trip next day in a skiff. 
The writer proposed that we take turns at the oars, but 
Henry said no, he would be blessed if he would tackle 
any such proposition as that on an August day. He pre- 
ferred going out into Street's woods and lay in the 
shade, where he might perhaps locate a bee tree. 
The next morning found Wm. Symns, Charlie Deuel, 
his son-in-law, and the writer, rounding the old Eaton 
wharf at just 5 o'clock, and a lovelier day in midsummer 
never dawned on Lake Champlain. The stories Henry 
Ford often told of his adventures in a Chicago cheese 
factory, and Charlie Deuel's tales of strange animals and 
rtien he had met while scouring the wilds out East for 
ginseng, went out of our minds, when William straight- 
ened up with a start and said, 'T told you that Skinner 
spoon bait of yours is no good. Thunder! he's hooked 
after all!" and that was evident enough, and William said 
it was no fault of his that the bass remained hooked — 
a 3-pound fish in the bag, and the high rocks only a 
boat's length back. Steven's Point Reef brought another 
and more gamy one to William's hook, and the indispen- 
sable fish bag. and Charlie followed wath two more of the 
small-mouthed fighters safely landed. The scribe had not 
been so successful, but crossing Highgate Flats he hooked 
and lost a large pickerel, an 18-pound fish undoubtedly, 
but rowing to keep the boys' spoons off the bottom 
PLAN OF NATURAL HATCHERY WITH CROSS-SECTION AND SERIES OF TROUT PONDS. 
