3 -THE ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF SALMON ON THE PACIFIC COAST 
OF THE UNITED STATES, 'WITH NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 
OF THE OUINNAT SALMON. 
By LIVINGSTON STONE, A. M. 
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SALMON-BREEDING WORK OF THE UNITED STATES FISH 
COMMISSION ON THE PACIFIC COAST, WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO OPERATIONS 
AT BAIRD STATION, CALIFORNIA. 
In 1864 the New Hami>shii'e legislature had the intelligence and tbresiglit to 
appoint a tish commission — the iiioneer fish commission of the United States — at the 
suggestion of Hon. Henry A. Bellows, of Concord. Two years after, in 1866, the 
commission sent Dr. W. W. Fletcher to New Brunswick to procure salmon eggs for 
Merrimac River. This was the first effort ever made in America in tlie direction of 
salmon breeding. Only two or three hundred fry were actually known to have 
resulted from this ex]jedition, but it was a beginning — a small beginning, it is true, but 
oueAvhich opened uii a field of operations that has since been enlarged beyond the 
most sanguine expectations. 
In 1867 Dr. Fletcher went again to New Brunswick, under the auspices of tlie 
New Hampshire Commission, and brought back 70,000 salmon eggs, of which about 
10,000 were successfully hatched. 
The next year, 1868, the writer, in connection with Mr. Joseph Goodfellow, of 
New Brunswick, pmt up a large salmon-hatching plant on Mirimichi River, and began 
the first systematic operations on this side of the Atlantic for taking and hatching 
salmon eggs. The neighboring residents, * however, very naturally jealous of the 
attempts of a foreigner to carry off their “salmon seed,” as they expressed it 
(although by explicit stipulations half of the eggs were to remain in New Brunswick), 
threw so many obstacles in the way that it was only by persistent effort, in the face 
of most discouraging opposition, that any salmon eggs at all were secured, the Avhole 
output of the season amounting to only 443,900 eggs, and the next year the local 
public sentiment was so hostile that this hatchery, constructed on a large scale and 
almost ideal in its natural adaptability to its purpose, had to be abandoned altogether. 
Very little was done in 1869 and 1870 in getting salmon eggs for the United 
States, except by purchase from the Canadian government, the price paid at that 
time being the preposterous sum of $40 in gold per 4,000, or nearly $45 in the then 
depreciated currency of the United States. 
In 4871^ Mr. Charles C. Atkins, of Maine, began operations in salmon breeding 
on the Penobscot, and obtained 72,300 eggs, at a cost of $18.09 per 1,000. 
‘ See Domesticated Trout, page 315. 
^ Mr. Atldus lias continued successfully to take salmon {Salrno salar) eggs on the I’euohscot up to 
the present time (1896). 
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