January, 1922 
FOREST AND STREAM 
15 
the fish reach actual maturity; go out 
to live as other fish of their sort do. 
That there m'ay be food enough, at 
least at the start, for all, the fish are 
released at different points in the area 
where the parents were caught. For- 
merly a great steamer was used for 
deploying them through the lake; now 
they are dropped from a boat instead. 
Infinite care must be taken in the 
winter time that the heat of the build- 
ing does not affect the fish. To provide 
against this the water is kept moving 
so rapidly that not over one degree of 
difference in temperature may be found 
in this water from the time it comes 
into the structure until it leaves and the 
highest temperature inside the building 
is about fifty degrees. 
saving eggs, — saving young fish, — in 
such armies as to fill many gaps else- 
where. 
It is estimated that not less than 33,- 
000,000 fish are released from this one 
station in a single season! It has been 
found by careful count that it requires 
almost exactly six-thousand fish to fill 
a quart measure, and they know just 
how many heaping quarts of fish are 
released into the lake each year. 
Once those fish have been released, 
Nature, of course, will have her way. 
Natural enemies, — accident, — what it 
may be, bring some to untimely deaths. 
It is found, however, that anywhere 
from sixty to seventy-five per cent, of 
The jar system of handling fish eggs 
in their eggs. To facilitate this work 
of separating fish from eggs another 
simple device is used : 
A tray resembling a diminutive win- 
dow screen is brought out and fitted 
with a long, narrow mesh. The eggs of 
the fish are quite round now and so can- 
not pass through this mesh, but the 
fishlets are narrow and wiggle through 
at once. A little shaking just beneath 
the water’s surface once more and the 
fish go to the trough-bottom while the 
eggs remain, of course, on the tray, and 
are replaced dn the original trough, 
with the rest of the sluggards, to con- 
tinue hatching. 
The fish thus secured from the egg- 
trays ipass at once to still other tray- 
boxes, built like the first. They have 
plenty of water, but the babies receive 
no food yet, for Nature has placed a 
wee sack under each that will supply 
it with natural food until it is two 
weeks old at least. 
At this tender age the fish are ready 
to be “planted”, as the hatchery people 
call it. They are turned loose in the 
big lake itself, as near the point of 
their taking as possible, as they are 
quite as well able to care for them- 
selves now as though they had been 
hatched by the Old Dame herself. In 
fact they are better able to care for 
themselves for if they had been hatched 
by Nature the older fish, often of the 
same kind, appearing a few days in 
advance, would have made short work 
of such a feast as they would have of- 
fered ! Perhaps it is a part of the 
economy of Nature so as to prevent 
over-population of the waters, that cer- 
tain fish shall devour the young of their 
own kind, but the depredations that are 
made in just such wise are nothing 
short of terrific! 
At Charlevoix the Government is 
doing a great deal to equalize these 
spoliations of the fish schools. It is 
VWITH the white-fish, work through 
the process of water-hardening 
goes on in quite the same way as 
with the trout but instead of using the 
boxes the eggs are placed in tall glass 
jars, since the water will circulate far 
more evenly through them, and white- 
fish eggs will smother beneath poor cir- 
culation far more rapidly than the eggs 
of trout. Lake trout lay their eggs 
among the honey-comb rocks, which 
often enclose still places, in a lake; 
whereas the white-fish lays her eggs 
in the open sand. 
In these jars, then, treatment of the 
eggs is rather the same as that given 
the lake-trout eggs in the boxes nearby, 
but instead of having the women pick 
out the bad eggs, they are syphoned 
away. Bad eggs, with the white-fish, 
come to the surface and men are at 
hand with syphons at all times, and 
these incumbrances are quickly re- 
moved. 
The jars are tapered at the base so 
that the water may enter;- — one gallon 
through each jar every minute. At the 
(Continued on page 34) 
A view of the tanks and trays 
