Mahch 21, igo^.J 
231 
Throughout the Province of British Columbia are 
countless lakes of all sizes, many of them teeming with 
trout, and in some of them no white man has ever wet 
a line. Some of the latter lakes were pointed out to me 
by my guide, a Dane, who had lived in that country for 
many j^ears, and who spends a large portion of his time 
in hunting and fishing. There are also a great many 
lakes which have no trout, and which are capable of 
supporting them. These the Provincial Government 
ought to stock at once, as an inducement for American 
sportsmen to spend their summers in that country and 
leave there some of their surplus wealth. 
No one who is not pretty comfortably fixed financially 
should go there for sport, as the stage traveling is very 
expensive; but after one reaches the fishing ground the 
usual amount of $5 per day per sportsman will cover 
the entire expense. Each sportsman should have a 
canvas boat and a complete camp outfit, beside a large 
supply of tackle, everything being at least in duplicate, 
as nothing except provisions can be purchased in the 
far North. Boatmen are scarce, and may have to be 
transported a long distance. They ask from $2 to $3 
per day and all expenses. 
The scenery in that country is picturesque beyond 
description; the air in summer is comfortably cool and 
very inviting; the insects, as a rule, are not trouble- 
some; the water is pure, clear and cold; there is_ very 
little rain; and, in short, all the conditions are simply 
ideal for a fishing trip. 
Grouse of half a dozen varieties are abundant, but 
the shooting season does not open till Sept. i; and 
soon after that, it is said, the ducks and geese come 
down from the north in great numbers. Bear, deer 
and caribou are numerous; but it requires a special 
and rather expensive license for an American to shoot 
them; beside, the best time to get them is during the 
winter months. 
In preparing this paper I started out with the inten- 
tion of discussing the comparative game qualities of 
rainbow trout and black bass; and now I find myself 
giving a lot of information about British Columbia as 
a sporting country, so "revenous a nos nwutons " comnie 
disent les Frangais. 
I therefore would state that, as far as my experience 
goes— and it is by no means a narrow one — no black 
bass that swims, be it large-mouth or small-mouth, can 
put up such a brave fight for its life as does the rain- 
bow trout in the rivers of the far North. 
J. A. L. Waddell. 
Salmon Culture in America* 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
1 AM glad to see from your issue of 7th inst. that my 
old friend, Mr. Livingston Stone, is still in the land 
of the living, and as zealous as ever in his hobby of Fish- 
Culture. But I regret to see that, in his letter to Mr. 
Marston, of the London Fishing Gazette, he is not as 
ingenuous as I thought him when last we met on the 
banks of the Southwest Miramichi, when I assisted him 
to get the first Salmon ova he ever hatched. 
He seems to think my statement of facts and figures, 
taken from the Public Records of Canada, does not tell 
the whole story because I omitted any mention of the 
hatcheries on the Pacific Coast, and he assures Mr. 
Marston that there_ Salrnon hatching has been a pro- 
digious success. His disingenuousness is painfully evi- 
dent in his reticence as to the condition of the Salmon 
rivers of the Pacific Coast. All writers who have 
recorded what they saw on these rivers agree as to the 
incredible numbers of Salmon that crowd their waters. 
The account given by Lieut. Fred. Schwatka of what he 
saw in 1887 almost staggers belief. That indefatigable 
investigator, tireless traveler and fine Angler of the Old 
Guard, Mr. Charles Hallock, who, more than any other 
man whose writings are before the public, has made the 
Pacific Salmon a special study for over thirty years, writ- 
ing in 1890 says, at page 12 of his instructive "Salmon 
Fisher:" "Upwards of 30,000,000 pounds of Salmon have 
been taken yearly in the Columbia River, and the canned 
commodity is kno\yn all over the world. Immense num- 
bers ascend the large rivers of the Pacific Coast, moving 
up sometimes a thousand miles until they are ready to 
spawn, after which most of those that reach the upper 
waters perisli from exhaustion. * * * During the 
midsummer run they swim in schools ten feet deep or 
more, with ranks closed up solid, so that it is impossible 
to thrust a spear or boat-hook into the mass without 
striking a salmon. In some of the estuaries on the Alaska 
Coast I have seen them jammed together so closely that 
they could not move at all; so that it is very easy to 
comprehend how it would be possible for a person to 
cross the stream dryshod if a plank were laid across their 
protruding backs." Again at page 48 he writes : "In the 
Columbia and like rivers, which extend for hundreds of 
miles, they die by millions, worn out and exhausted by 
their incredible journey; such as reach the upper beds 
arrive in sorry plight, mutilated, crushed and almost 
shapeless. Fortunate are those which have vitality 
enough to be able to return to the sea. Indeed, so great 
is the mortality that it is generally believed they never 
return at all." 
I have now before me a letter written this year describ- 
ing the Salmon-run in Fraser River, which says: "The 
Salmon enter this river in such enormous numbers as to 
stop boats. It would seem to me that the force of their 
own weight in rugged places would kill thousands — forc- 
ing them against the shores and rocks by pressure from 
behind. The weaker must succumb to the tremendous 
force of struggling millions, and be literally jammed to 
death." There would seem to be little need of hatching 
houses here, and yet, strange to say, there are two and 
others asked for. The manager of the hatching house on 
this river, the late Thomas Mowat, who graduated as a 
fish-culturist in the hatchery at Dee Side on the Resti- 
gpuche, ^yas an exceptionalb^ clever observer, for which 
his experience on that great Salmon river peculiarly fitted 
him, states in his Reports that, in his opinion, three- 
fourths of the fish that reach the upper grounds perished 
after spawning. 
I have also before me as I write the Report of a Com- 
mission appointed in 1891 to investigate the condition of 
this and the Skg^n.a River, coiisisting of 433 pages. Ttie 
Commissioners were Hon. D. W. Higgins and Sheriff 
Armstrong, of British Columbia, and the late Samuel 
Wilmot, who acted as chairman. There were 112 wit- 
nesses examined under oath, representing the canneries, 
the merchants, farmers, fishermen and settlers along the 
river. Some of these witnesses had been residing in Brit- 
ish Columbia more than thirty years, and were of Eng- 
lish, Scotch, Irish, United States and Canadian parentage. 
There was a general consensus of testimony that, though 
there were then twenty-two canneries in active operation, 
the fish were j ust as numerous as ever, and the death rate 
about the same. In that year, igoi, the canneries put up 
400,000 cases of 48 pounds each, making a total of 
19,200,000 pounds. The Inspector of Fisheries testified 
that, had the canners desired, 600,000 cases could have 
been packed. 
Mr. Stone says in his letter : "When I first went to the 
Columbia, in 1877, to establish the original hatchery, there 
were 1,200 miles of drift nets in the lower Colum- 
bia alone, for furnishing the canneries with Salmon. 
Since then the nets have multiplied and there are, added 
to these, the destructive wheels and other murderous 
devices for exhausting the river. Nevertheless the sup- 
ply neither fails nor diminishes. No reasonable person 
could believe for a moment that this enormous draft on 
the Salmon supply could be maintained every year unless 
the hatcheries turned in their millions of young fish to 
offset this prodigious drain on the river." But the Re- 
port of the Commission above mentioned shows that 
T12 of the most reasonable men in Victoria and Van- 
couver believed and testified on oath that for thirty years 
the supply had been kept up in Fraser River, and was 
then as great as they had ever known it to be, Mr. Stone 
further says that he "saw at the Karluk fishery of Kadiak 
Island 153,000 full-grown .Salmon caught in one day in 
July, 1888, and that this one day's, catch filled, in round 
numbers, a million cans. There is a hatchery here, but it 
cannot be quoted yet as evidence of the benefits of artifi- 
cial propagation, because it has not been in operation long 
enough ; but it is a significant fact that the cannery men, 
who are ranked among the shrewdest business men of the 
country, have expended on the hatchery $100,000 of their 
private funds." 
Mr. Marston cannot fail to see that Mr. Stone has 
furnished no data whatever to enable him to judge for 
himself how successful or otherwise the hatcheries have 
been. Their success rests entirely on the mere opinion 
of the "enlightened public," including fishermen, cannery- 
men and the Fish Commissioner, "that the benefits have 
been enormous." I think Mr. Marston and your readers 
will have strong doubts about the "shrewdness" of these 
business men who spend .$100,000 on a hatchery without 
informing themselves of the result of similar experiments 
in the United States, in Canada, in Great Britain and in 
Europe; especially when the end sought could be more 
cheaply and effectually gained by refraining from catching 
153,000 fish in one day, and allowing a sufficient number 
to ascend to their spawning beds and reproduce their kind 
in the way Nature has established, and which has been so 
successful that their progeny are so numerous that they 
kill themselves in vast numbers from overcrowding. I 
can see no "shrewdness" — but rather the want of it — 
in trying to increase the number of Sahnon already too 
great for the river and for their own health. This want 
of "shrewdness," however, cannot be charged on the 
Columbia River canners ; for as long as the Fish Commis- 
sion will produce young Salmon at the public expense for 
their benefit, they will continue to use their 1,200 miles 
of drift nets and their murderous wheels. They will, if 
Nature will let them, repeat the old story which Mr. 
Stone has heard and seen in the Eastern and Northern 
States— the old story of the St. Croix, the Penobscot, the 
Merrimac, the Connecticut, the Hudson, the Delaware 
and the_ Susquehanna, which past greed has depopulated, 
and which Mr, Stone confesses cannot be restocked by 
artificial culture. 
No one knows better than Mr. Stone how complete 
has been the failure of Salmon culture to increase the 
catch in England, Scotland and Ireland; no one knows 
better than he' that a similar failure has resulted from all 
the experiments made in France, Germany, Sweden and 
Norway ; no one knows better how utterly it has failed 
in the Atlantic States and in Canada, and I am at a loss 
to know what possible motive he can have in telling Mr. 
Marston that its success in the Pacific States has been 
great and its benefits enormous, when he cannot produce 
a particle of evidence that a county court judge would ad- 
mit that anything more has been done than collect ova, 
hatch_ fry and dump them into the rivers, as is still being 
done in no fewer than fourteen hatcheries in Canada, with 
the result shown in my reply to Mr. Marston which was 
printed in your issue of February 21. If my old friend 
will calmly study the question in the light of what has 
resulted from Salmon culture in Great Britain, on the 
continent of Europe, in the Atlantic States and in Canada, 
I think he will revise his present belief in its usefulness. 
The Old Angler. 
When is a Sea Trout a Brook Trout? 
Not even the scalpels and microscopes of the scientists, the ex- 
pert ichthyologists, will show them any distinguishing differences 
between the sea trout and the brook trout in any of those partic- 
ulars on which they rely to distinguish different species.— Win. H. 
Venning, Feb. 25, 1903. 
This is exact truth. For one I have always admitted 
that there was no anatomical or structural difference be- 
tween the two. But — listen, mark, and inwardly digest 
the points wherein I make irreconcilable distinctions. 
Take, for argument's sake, litters of dogs, cats, foxes, 
squirrels, et al., or even human twins, triplets or quar- 
tettes, if you please, which are certainly of the same 
family: When we observe a startling difference in their 
colors, dispositions, habits, choice of food, occupation, 
tastes, tendencies and selection of environment, do we 
not label and designate them differently, for sake of con- 
venience in specification, as well as out of respect to the 
facts, and to help such persons as do not know them 
to tell them apart on these recognized lines of dis- 
similarity? 
The twin brothers Jacob and Esau were founders of 
two notably distinct races of men, although of the same 
parents. If we admit the facts as to men, why not as to 
fishes? Charles tjALLOCK, 
RfAftcH 6, i?og, 
Salmon Propagation in Pacific 
Waters a Success. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
It was not my good fortune to see a copy of youf 
issue of Feb. 28, and but for the kindness of a friend I 
should not have read Old Angler's communication in 
re "Artificial Salmon Culture in America," or have 
known that Mr, R. B. Marston, editor of the Fishing, 
Gazette, of London, had in your issue of Feb. 7 asked 
for authentic information as to the results of artificial 
cultivation of salmon in America. 
The Old Angler says "Th^it not having the reports 
of the United States Fish Commissioner to quote 
from, the writer can only state that, as far as he has 
been able to learn, not a single adult Pacific salmon 
has been taken from any waters in which millions have 
been planted since 1872, when Mr. Livingston Stone 
sent his first shipment of eyed ova from the McCloud 
River to the United States Fish Commission." 
In answer to the desire of Mr. R. B. Marrston and 
to the above .statement, let me briefly submit the fol- 
lowing from the Pacific side of America: For ten 
years the writer was the executive officer of the Fish 
Cominission of the State of California, and for the past 
thirteen years has devoted almost his entire time to 
the study of the life and the propagation of Pacific sal- 
mon. In writing, in 1901, upon the results of the 
propagation of salmon (0. tschanytscha) in California, 
the writer stated briefly that: 
"In reviewing the history of the salmon and its 
propagation in the Sacramento River, we find that un- 
der natural conditions, before the natural spawning 
grounds had been destroyed, the catch in 1873 was a 
little oyer five million pounds. Hatcheries were estab- 
lished in 1874, and 2,000,000 fry were annually planted 
up to 1884, when the hatcheries were closed for four 
years. In 1878 the catch was 6,500,000 pounds. The 
annual catch reached . its greatest in 1880, when 10,- 
837,000 pounds were taken, and the catch in each of the 
ensuing j^ears was over 9,000,000 pounds. Beginning 
with the fourth year following the close of the hatcher- 
ies, the catch annually decreased until 1892, when the 
lowest figures were reached, only 3,484,000 pounds be- 
ing taken, when the effect of the resumption of the 
hatchery work was again made manifest. The catch has 
annually increased. The census for 1899, issued by the 
United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, gives 
the catch for that year as 7,232,645 pounds, and the 
catch for 1901 is placed by authorities at about 9,000,- 
000 pounds. 
In this connection it should be remembered that the 
establishment of manufactories, the diversion of waters 
for irrigation, extensive mining and agricultural meth- 
ods during the last ten years have almost entirely de- 
stroyed the natural spawning grounds of the salmon in 
the Sacramento River. The propagation of salmon in 
California alone maintains the run of these fish in her 
streams. This statement cannot be, and is not, ques- 
tioned by any authority on the subject." 
The Reports of the United States Fish Commission 
and those of the California Fish Commission have 
given full attention to the work in California and con- 
tain ample evidence of the success met with there since 
Mr. Livingston Stone began his great work. 
The reports of the fish commissions of Oregon and 
Washington contain evidence of the success of salmon 
propagation in their waters. Not only are the catches 
of salmon in the Columbia River shown to be increas- 
ing — after years of steady decline — but young salmon 
liberated from the United States Fish Commission sta- 
tion at Clackamas, in Oregon, after being marked, have 
been recaptured upon their return to the Columbia 
River as adults. 
The evidence from California is more complete than 
from any other Pacific State for the reasons that 
greater attention has been given it; the figures' of the 
catch have been preserved; propagation has been car- 
ried on for a longer period, and that from the limited 
nature of her salmon waters results can be more read- 
ily shown. The California Fish Commission has not 
confined its efforts to the propagation of Pacific sal- 
mon. 
The Salmo salar sebago was introduced into some of 
the lake waters in California as early as 1878, and scat- 
tering plants have been made up to 1898. The eyed- 
ova was shipped from Maine. The records show that 
a total of 96,550 of these fry have been liberated there 
and that the fry of the early shipments were weak and 
gave little promise of survival. Adult specimens of 
these landlocked salmon have been taken from Lake 
Tahoe and some of the smaller lakes of the Sierra 
Nevada Mountains. They are not numerous, but they 
are there. 
The Eastern _ brook trout {S. fontinalis) were intro- 
duced into California in 1872, and the State has propa- 
gated them nearly every year since. For the past fif- 
teen years the eggs have been obtained from local 
waters. These fish have thrived in all suitable waters 
and are now_ found in abundance in many of the lakes 
and streams in the Yosemite Valley region and in many 
other less known sections. 
Similar results have been obtained Avith the Salmo 
fario. 
In addition to the above it is interesting and to the 
ooint to note that in 1879 and 1882 a total of only 450 
fingerling striped bass {Roccus lineatus) were success- 
fully transported from the Atlantic Coast and liberated 
in the waters of the Sacramento River in California. 
These fish were unknown to any Pacific waters, and 
no others than the before-mentioned 450 were ever 
liberated there. Yet these fish began to be taken in 
1888, and as early as 1892 the catch is shown to have 
been 56,209 pounds. Their increase has be^n marvel- 
ous. In 19CO over 1.500.000 pounds were taken from 
California waters. Similar results followed the intro- 
duction of the shad. 
In commenting upon these results, Dr. liugh M. 
Smith, of the United States Fish Commission, says: 
"Of scarcely less consequence than the actual re- 
sults of shad and striped bass introduction on the 
•\vest co^st is the important bearing which the sncc9ss 
