84 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
tfftslf (^ttUitre. 
[Prom Proceedings of American Fish Cnlturlsls' Association 1 
STOCKING DEPLETED WATERS. 
BY SETH onEEN. 
G ENTLEMEN:— I have been worrying my brain for the 
lost twelve years in studying out the art of Halt cul- 
ture and the best way to stock our depicted waters. In the 
year 1837 I commenced Ashing as a business, and followed 
it until 1800. I hud sometimes as many as one hundred 
men in my employ in taking and selling fish. I did my 
fishing with all kinds of nets and lines, and in all kinds of 
waters, and had us good success as any other fisherman in 
those days. When the weather was so that any boat could 
live on the lake, my boat was sure to be there with an early 
otnrt. I have been capsized, and have ridden sometime 
on the bottom of my boat. I did not like it, but preferred 
it to not hnving anything to ride on. I have rowed eight- 
een hours without getting off my seat, and pulled every 
stroke for my life. The boat had stern way on her six 
hours of the eighteen, with every man pulling his best. I 
was fishing in Lake Ontario at the time, at u point four 
miles above the mouth of the Genesee River. We started 
from shore at three in the morning, in an open boat twenty 
feet long ami seven feet beam, myself, two men and u boy 
comprising the crew. The lines were set twelve miles out 
in the lake, and I was fishing for salmon trout, with set 
lines. I reached ray buoy at seven o’clock that morning, 
and hnd taken tip four miles of lino when it blew so hard 
that t lie line broke. I started for shore with the wind dead 
abend and blowing a gale, and reached thereat three o'clock 
the next morning, landing at Braddock’s Bay, three miles 
from my cabin and forty rods from a fish shanty. I sent 
one of iny crew to wake up the men; in about five min- 
utes I sent another man, and in about live minutes more 
myself and the boy started for the same shanty. I had got 
about half way to it when 1 found one of my men lying 
on the sand fast asleep in u pouring rain. I got him to his 
feet, went to the shanty, and found the door open and the 
logs of my first messenger sticking out over the threshold, 
and he, too, was fast asleep. After pulling the latch string 
lie had fallen in without waking the fishermen in the hut. 
We got the latter up, and stowed ourselves away in their 
warm hells, and that was the lust any of us knew for the 
next twelve hours. I took, or caused to he taken, from a 
half ton to three lone of fish daily for twenty years of the 
early purl of my life, and think I know all the devices for 
taking fish, from a pin hook to a pound net. I lmve used 
all of them, and have probably done as much toward clean- 
ing out the waters of this State as any man, and that is the 
reason, I suppose, why people think I should know some- 
thing about restocking these waters. The great secret in 
this work is in pulling fish in the waters suited to them. 
Many bodies of water arc suited to kinds of fish that never 
were in them before, but all waters are not fit for all kinds 
of fish, and you might better put them on the land than in 
waters not suited to them. They will not thrive; the 
waters into which you put fish must have the right kind ol 
food for them, and you must know if it is there, and it is 
a mistaken idea some people have that fish will live on 
water; they cannot any more than you can live on air. 
Many of the Stales have fish commissioners, and this State 
lias three — Gov. Seymour, Robt. B. Roosevelt, and Edward 
M. Smith. 1 um their superintendent, and being one of 
the oldest in the business, and having probably seen as 
much of ii from the bottom to the top os any, 1 take the 
liberty to give you my opinion of what kind of men you 
want for fisb commissioners. You want wealthy, public- 
spit Itod men — three such men. The superintendent must 
be a practical fisherman, who knows how to take all kinds 
of fish in all sorts of inland waters, and if you can get a 
man who is a fish culturlst OS well ns a fisherman, ulT the 
better. If you have to employ a man who has but one of 
these qualifications, the fisherman is the more vnluable. 
You must know how to take fish to have them lor stocking 
your waters. I, of course, think our State the model one 
in these respects. The commissioners and myself have 
been opera tin * together for the last six years, and never 
have had any discord thnt we did not settle at the time. 
We get together once a year, lay our plans, and then live 
up to them. There was a time when I thought I knew 
more than they did about thc*business; but they have 
caught up with me; and I don’t know but what they are 
a little ahead, for they know all that I do, besides what 
they have learned from everybody else. We have now 
practical knowledge euougli to stock all our waters, but tlio 
greut secret Is to do it in the right way. All of our used 
up shad rivers can surely be slocked again, nnd become as 
productive as in their best days; and the quicker it is done 
the better, for they are getting poorer every year. lathe 
year 1808 I was in Washington, and hatched a few shad in 
Gen. Spiuner’e office. I told him I could slock the l’oto- 
iuuc with young shad, and in threo years they would be us 
plenty in that stream as they ever were, lie asked me how 
much it would cost. 1 said $2,500 would doit. Ho said 
he could get an appropriation from the Government, and 
we went to the capitol and told the members our story. 
They presented a bill, and one of the members objected to 
it; that was the eud of it, and Gen. Spinner was one of the 
maddest men 1 ever saw. He said it was the .greatest ca- 
lamity to the country that had happened in this generation, 
aud so it was. if he had obtained the $2,500 appropriu- 
lion the Potomac River would to-day be tbe greatest shad 
river iu the world. At that time I was the only man who 
had ever hatched shad to know anything practically about 
it, aud 1 did it all with my own hands. Now it is differ- 
ent. 1 have eight practical men, and every one of them is 
► able to run a shad hatching establishment. There is but 
one other in the country who cun, and that is Charles 
Smith, who was with me at Holyoke in 1807. Shad hatch- 
ing is a trade by itself. A man may know bow to hatch 
oilier kinds of fish, and make a perfect failure In hatching 
shaii. He may know how to hatch shad in a running 
stream, and tail in tidal waters; but there is enough known 
about it now to restock all our shad rivers, and in a few 
years make them equal to their best days, if the work is 
well arranged. The next greut thing to be done is to stock 
all our larger lakes with salmon trout and whiteflsh. We 
have been Hutching these for the last seven years, and 1 
know that our great lakes ean be abundantly slocked in a 
few years. Tbe Canadian Government would probably 
assist, as they have eminent fish culturists, who know the 
benefit both countries would derive from the work. Even 
if one side was willing, and the other not, the undertaking 
would pay millions of dollars to either. Let each side, 
then, go to work on its own hook, for as soon as one side 
begins the other will surely follow. If we begin first, we 
cannot do so much that the Canadians will not try to out 
do us, and vice vena. Much valuable time is lost by wait- 
ing. Three years ago I took as many salmon trout spawn 
with four men as I secured last Fall with twelve, and if 
the fisb decrease in the same ratio for a few years more it 
will take a long time to stock the lakes again. Tbe black, 
Oswego, and rock bass, and wall-eyed pike arc valuable for 
stocking our inland waters. It is well enough to cxehange 
spawn with the old countries without going to much ex- 
pense in doing it. We have as fine varieties of fish in this 
country as there are in any other. A good deal has been 
said about the earn for stocking some of our waters; hut if 
I am rightfully informed it is a coarse fish, about equal to 
our mullet. The Oswego bass is much to be preferred for 
the table, is a fust breeder, and will five in uny waters that 
that the carp can exist in. Wc want done only what we 
know is practical, and do not. want expensive experiments; 
our commissioners say to us, wc want to expend the peo- 
ple’s money for what we know to be lor the greatest good 
to the greatest number, and there is plenty of work to do 
before we can spend time in experiments. Let us stock 
our waters with fish; there is no trouble in dome it, unless 
we switch off to some other work which does not belong 
to the one we have commenced. If we turn aside we shall 
soon find that the people will refuse appropriations, and 
the work will he stopped, for there is not a dollar of the 
people’s money spent but some one discovers what it was 
expended for, whether for the purposee to which it was 
appropriated or not. Let us keep the confidence of the 
people. When I went to the Connecticut and Hudson 
rivers and told the people I was going to hatch shad eggs, 
and make shad plenty and cheap, I was hooted at; being 
looked upon by some as a lunatic, and by others as a rogue. 
Mr. James Mull, who owns the fishery where we do our 
shad hatching fr r this State, told me last Summer that he 
sent a dozen gentlemen to talk with me and see if they 
could make out what kind of a character I was. All 
thought I was insane or an impostor, and I was treated as 
such the first year on the Hudson and Connecticut rivers. 
Some of my visitors told Mr. Mull, on their return, that I 
might he insane, but was no fool. It is different now, aud 
they don't hoot at me, but take my band with a warmth 
that gladdens my heart. I huve a set of men with me who 
me practical fishermen and practical fish culturists. I 
think they are good as any iu any couutry, and are capable 
of .superintending operations in any State. They are not 
writers, but are honest, and have education enough to keep 
an account of all they do. They are deserving of better 
places and more wages than our commissioners can afford 
to pay them. They have been taught economy, and prac- 
tice it. 
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COMMIS- 
SIONERS OF FISHERIES OF THE 
STATE OF MAINE. 
T HE commmissioners, in presenting their eighth re- 
port, dwell with enthusiasm upon the cordial man- 
ner in which their efforts have been seconded by the people. 
A larger edition of the report has enabled them to diffuse 
a more general knowledge of tl.c native fishes of the State, 
as well as of the nundromous fishes which visit her rivers. 
They look upon fish culture as not ouly an important and 
wealth-producing interest, but also as a resource of pri- 
vate industry for securing food not second to that derived 
from the production of the domestic animals and fowls, 
and the grain products of the fields. 
The error of allowing the river highways traversed by 
these ocean visitors to be obstructed is severely commented 
upon. Prevision provides the means for civilization and 
culture. Subsistence must be insured beyond the chance 
production of a system liable to be varied by the elements. 
Fish culture, they claim, is a settled fact, and every acre 
of land will in the future he looked to by its owner to yield 
its crop of fishes as much as his tilled fields their auuual 
products of roots and cereals. 
* nv inauoi in appeuie is me guardian ot lite. The ne 
cessiltes of a remote population still demand the sanilan 
requirement of its “Quintal of Fish.” Once it was takci 
at the river side. The yearly store of salted salmon oi 
shad or ale wife may he no longer had; the dried fish o 
trade, at first at a very low price, for a time supplied th< 
waul. Soon an unaccountable scarcity of our oceau fishei 
so raised t lie prices that fish became a luxury, aud not t 
homely need. The system of checks and balances Na 
t nix’s law of equivalents, may not be lightly meddled witL 
by mun. 
Kansus and Nebraska are now making an appeal to the 
sympathy of their fellow-citizens of our republic for bread 
to save litem from famine caused by the grasshopper 
Should mau, in his thoughtless disregard of the laws oi 
Nature, destroy all the fish that inhabit our waters, the re- 
sult would be ratal to all growing vegetation, as well us to 
animal life. No so powerful check upon the insect tribe 
as our lly-feeding fishes and birds. Thoughtless legislation 
is alone to blame for tbe present scarcity of fish and the 
enhancement of the cost of living by raising the price ol 
other necessities in the precise ratio of their deficiency. 
Of the actual operations of the commissioners, the report 
says that 200,000 salmon eggs were received from the 
Buck sport salmon breeding works. In addition to these 
'-..>0,000 wore received as a gift from the General Govern- 
ment through Prof. Baird. These were duly distributed 
between the 1 cmnHquuu, St. Croix, Piscatuquis, Sebec 
Medomak, Georges, Androscoggin, and Penobscot rivers 
1 he reports from the various localities where the salmon 
try were deposited ate of the most favorable description 
borne of the streams are said to be fairly swarming witli 
the young fish, but unfortunately there is no law to pro- 
tect them, aud legislative action is requested. 
Land-locked, or fresh water salmon, is knowu in the 
Mute under so many names thut it is almost impossible to 
l ecognt/c the fisb save from personal experience. Iu 
M.n L r UOl . R '; ° r . , Graml Luke Wttlers < il is found in great 
numbers, but seldom over seven pounds in weight- the 
average weight is one and a half pounds. Sebec Xake is 
also lumous lor them. At Reed’s pond, twelve miles from 
Bangoi, on the Calais River, they have in the past been 
SS a V,‘ lgl ‘ !ls twenty-two pounds. These 
fishes of Reed s pond have not only been very much thinned 
out by the merciless slaughter of them on their spawning 
beds by the class oi drunken roughs who live by pot limn- 
ing and poaching, but to fully as great an extent by being 
deprived of access to their natural spawning ground in 
swift running waters. It is a necessity of this fish to have 
access to running aerated water as well for spawning as 
for health. Tbe Reed pond salmon have been so driven 
by the the erection of dams on most of the brooks and 
streams that empty into this lake to reek other spawning 
places, that many of them will deposit their eggs on sand 
bars in the pood itself; these eggs never hatch, as a certain 
amount of motion and circulation to the water seems abso- 
lutely essential to that process. 
Prof. Agassiz has said that thirty years ago he supposed 
the land-locked salmon to be a demoralized salmon, that 
some cause had prevented access to the ocean, but subse- 
quently changed his opinion, and concluded it was a dif- 
crent species. 
The young of both Salmo salar , as well as of the land- 
locked, or fresh water salmon, are marked by dusky grey 
bars, which gradually fade out and entirely” disappear in 
tbe second year. Upon stripping off tbe skin of tbe adult 
fresh water, or land-locked salmon, these bars will be 
found still visible upon the body of the fish, while on the 
Salmo solar they are not apparent. The young of both 
fishes are so similar as not to be distinguished apart. Two 
thousand young fry, hatched from eggs presented by Prof. 
Baird to the State of Maine, were transported fifty miles 
by wagon and five miles by boat, and turned into Kenne- 
bago stream, above the dam, without the loss of a fish. 
The Kennebago empties into the Mooselucmaguntic, one of 
the Rangely lakes. 
The trout of Sebago and Rangely lakes are pronounced 
to be pure, unmistakable Salmo fo n h nalis, or brook trout, 
developed by an unlimited suppiy of appropriate food and 
an unrestricted range in the purest and coldest water. The 
commissioners think that the introduction of the Salmo 
oquassa , or blue back trout, as a stock fish to waters inhab- 
ited by the Sabno fo n tinalis and land locked salmon, would 
.largely increase, the numbers of the latter fishes. The 
blue back is to Raneely what the myriad smelts are to Se- 
bago Lake and Reed’s pond. Mr. C. T. Richardson, whose 
long experience on Rangely waters entitles his opinions to 
much respect, says:— 
“The blue back stays in deepwater in the lake from near 
the middle of November until tbe middle of October, when 
they come up the brooks and streams to spawn. The male 
brook trout visits the spuwu bed and prepares it for the 
use of tbe females before the females arrive; the blue 
backs go up in pairs, male and female, using spawn beds 
cleared, used, nnd vacated by brook trout. The blue back 
is not considered a biting or game fish, yet I huve caught 
a bushel and a half iu a day with a baited book; they are 
mostly caught in dip nets." 
The introduction of black bass lias been successful in 
some localities, but a disregard of the laws aud the use of 
nets in others has rendered futile much of the labor of the 
commissioners. They have also met with the most deter- 
mined opposition on the part of mill owners ami others iu 
their efforts to establish fishways on the various rivers, re- 
sulting in vexatious law suits. An urgent appeal is made 
to the State legislature as to the necessity for a more uni- 
form system of fishery laws, particularly as regards the 
close time. At present the law of close time commences 
the loth of September on Schoodicatul Grand Lake waters, 
15th October on Bras sau and Aloosebead waters, and the 
1st of October for the rest of the State, creating endless 
confusion. 
The report is voluminous, but a most entertaining and 
admirably gotten up document, and we regret that we have 
not the space to give a longer abstract of its interesting 
contents. 
For Forest an d Stream. 
LAND-LOCKED SALMON OF MAINE. 
i n 30111 paper oi 1110 aotn ot February vou call attention 
to the results of experiments tried by Messrs. Thomp- 
son and Tagg, of New Hope, Pennsylvania, iu breeding 
balmo salar in fresll water, etc. The laud locked salmon 9 
or Salmo jjloven, is represented by you as a dwarfed fisb’ 
and the inference dnuvu that hence it is a Salmo salar 
dwarfed from not being allowed to go down to the salt 
water. The land-locked salmon of Maine, ns taken in 
Reed s pond and in Sebago Lake, is by no meuus a dwarf 
fish. 1 hey have been taken in the former of the weight of 
twenty-two pounds. Within a year a male fish has been 
taken in Sebago Lake of tbe weight of seventeen pounds 
a female fish of eighteen pounds, one of thirteen pounds’ 
and one of eleven and a half pounds. As 1 have bad oc- 
casion to remark in our last report, these fishes differ in 
their size in the various waters in which they are bred as 
do our brook trout. I can take you to ponds in Maine,’ on 
some of our mountain sides, where you may fill a cart with 
trout, the largest of which will not exceed half a pound in 
weight. I can take you to the Rangely lakes, where you will 
see trout of ten pounds in size, and yet they are true Salmo 
JonUnalis. What is the rule, or law, or cause, that governs 
the size of these fishes? Probably as much the adaptability 
of the food to the requirements of the youmr fry on the 
spawning beds as its abundance. Mr. Win. Wilson an in- 
telligent farmer on the Mirimiehi, near Boiestown ’n B 
who used to purchase and salt largely the salmon iti his 
river in former days, when they were plenty, told me that 
he could distinguish the salmon that were bred 011 the 
Clear Water, a small tributary of the Mirimiehi, from their 
diminutive size not one ever exceeding eight pounds in 
weight. A forty pound fish was at thut time by no means 
rare on he Mirimiehi. Now whence this diffenence iu 
size? They all went down and up the same river to 
ami from their great pasture, the ocean. We have some 
htly land-locked salmon iu a small pond at Aina. Tbcv are 
now five years old, and not one is longer than a small alu- 
wife, and not one has developed either spawn or milt 
because they have been meagrely fed on inappropriate 
food. I have seen well developed spawn in a grilse under 
three pounds we.gbt, taken at Burnt Hill, on the Mirimiehi 
ami I think other gentlemen will relate the same ex per i- 
ft U rHi 1 l *°“ bt “ two year old salmon appears as 
a tlll “ k 11 much depends upon the stage of water 
as to whether the young smolt or salmon, in its second 
* he oceau cven theu - Tlte spent salmon, 
?JtZr tL s!l _ ‘'^? ni011 1 ! al have spawned— always 
wait for the Spring flood to go down on. The instinct of 
the young fish seems to guide it to seek its safety in the 
same cause. On a full flood, head up stream, iSS swiT- 
SlJSi nf y 10 , re i l8t lhe current « t,le y will buoy them- 
selves over the most dangerous falls and rapids, 3 
