19 -FEEDING AND REARING FISHES, PARTICULARLY TROUT, UNDER 
DOMESTICATION. 
By WILLIAM F. PAGE, 
Superintendeiit of Uniled States Fish Commission Station at Neosho, Missoiiri. 
ARTIFICIAL FOOD. 
In tlie summer of 1893 I presented paper at tlie Chicago meeting of the American 
Fisheries Society under the title: Plant Yearlings Where Heeded. A jjortiou of the 
paper contained a summary of some studies which I had made on feeding and rearing 
fishes. The present iiaper is an elaboration of that summary by adding the results 
of further .study and investigation. 
To the fish-cnlturist striving to improve methods and results the imiiortance of 
the question of fish food can scarcely be exaggerated. Aside from the interest on the 
cost of the plant and pay of the necessary employes, it is the principal fixed charge, 
and in most cases the only item of exiiense capable of reduction, or, what amounts to 
the same thing, the most promising field for obtaining better results for the outlay. 
I address myself particularly to those fish-culturists who are engaged in rearing 
fishes to be sold for food, and to those who see the necessity for planting large fish in 
certain waters intended to be stocked. The paper will have little interest for those 
who dispose of their fish as fry. To the former class the data, if not the deductions, 
must possess some value. 
Howhere in the literature of fish-culture obtainable at the general book stores 
can the prospective investor find an answer to the natural question, Plow much will 
it cost to raise a pound of troutf unless we except the statements made in the 
concluding chapter of Domesticated Trout, a part of which was written twenty-two 
years ago, and the remainder in 1890, statements A\ddch, I thiiik, Mr. Stone Avould not 
care to guai'autee to day.* In 1804 Mr. Francis Francis wrote: 
Doubtless some kinds of i'ood agree with them [trout] far better than others. But we know very 
little ou this branch of the subject. It is dreamland to us, with very little ascertained waking' reality. 
Few experiments of any note have been tried in the feeding of fishes, this being as yet almost untrodden 
ground. 
This remark is as true to-day as when Avritteu, tldrty years ago, and stands as a 
monument to the Avant of progress among American fish-culturists. I say American 
fish-culturists, for fortunately the Europeans have progressed in this direction. 
Because OA^er tAvo decades ago a fish-cultnrist, groping in the dim light of a closely 
shuttered house illuminated by a single bull’s- eye. lantern, killed Ids trout with a diet 
of milk curd, and another exjiert, Avith as much (or as little) light in the house and on 
* In the Transactions of the American Fisheries Society for 1892, Mr. F. N. Clark ]ireseuts some 
calculations ou the cost of raising yearling fish, and in the United States Fish Commission Bulletin 
for 1893, page 228, Mr. C. G. Atkins gives some similar data; but neither of them reduce.s the cost to 
pounds of fish, without which, for the purposes of this discussion, the data possess little or no value. 
289 
F. C. B. 1891-19 
