FEEDING AND REARING FISHES. 
299 
FISH FOOD AS PREPARED AND USED AT THE NEOSHO STATION. 
The base of the food is composed of a musli made of “shorts/’ or mill middlings. 
To this mash, according to the kind of lish to be fed, beef liver is added in varying 
])ro])ortions. The mash, iinmixed with liver, is fed to some kinds of fish; mixed with 
liver to others, and for some kinds is not employed. For making the mash we rise the 
best quality of shorts. The })oor quality will not answer, becarrse, like corn meal, the 
mash made from it is too readily solnble ia the water, dividing into liner irarticles 
than the iish will eat. To obviate this we have the miller mix from 5 to 10 per cent 
of i)Oor Hoar with the shorts when it “rnus poor.” For making the inirsh a large, 
25-gallon farm boiler is tilled nearly fall of clean water, which is broaght to the 
boiling point. Shorts is then added, about 1 gallon at a time, and thoroughly stirred 
in. Care is taken that the shorts does not become lumpy, bat has a chance to cook 
in an even pasty mass, otherwise portions would be raw. After enoagh shorts has 
been added to bring the mass to a thick mash it is poared off into convenient-sized 
pails and allowed to cool. It has been found advantagoons to allow the mash to set 
and harden thoronghly in the pails before using. To aid this process in the summer 
the pails are placed in the cold running Avater in the hatching troughs. When 
thoroughly set, Avell hardened, it is imt so likely to too freely dissoh’e in the ponds. 
To each kettlefiil, of 25 gallons capacity, 30 pounds of shorts are used, producing 
IGO ponnds of mash. To each kettle of mash, as it is being made, three to four pints 
of common salt is added. Whilst the shorts is being added to the boiling water the 
mixture requires constant, vigorous stirring. For this purpose we use a wooden 
paddle with a handle 4 feet long. Forty-lWe minutes is asiially sufficient time in 
which to prepare such a quantity of mash. 
Four to live minutes vnll prepare a lO-pound beef liver for oar Avork (except Avheu 
feeding jmiing fry), by using a Flo. 22 meat cutter made by the Enterprise Manafac- 
turing Conq)any, of Third and Dauphin streets, Philadelphia, Pa. These machines 
are provided AA'ith perforated jilates for regulating the size of the cut of meat. The 
perforations vary from one-sixteeiith to three-eighths of an inch, being anpile range 
from smallest to largest fish, except for very young fry. When trout commence to 
feed the liver is run through the one-sixteenth incli plate, and afterAvards is forced 
through a line-Avire screen. The screening of the liA^er is kept up until the trout are 
large enough to swalloAA" the particles of meat as they come from the machine. This 
period Aniries with the development of the fish, the safe period aA’eraging about the 
third month of feeding. 
The A^ery young trout have never been subjected to thenui.sh diet, though it is not 
doubted that they could be induced to eat it, but they are started and kept upon a 
inire beef-liver diet until they are thoroughly trained to congregate for their food. 
When the fry har’e been on beef liver for about tAvo months we commence to mix in a 
little mush, and gradually increase the proportion of mush (and quantity of food) until 
by the time they are six months old the mush and liver may be in equal proportions. 
After that time the atldition is made freely, so that when the fish are yearlings the 
liver may be reduced to a minimum. Exigencies huA'^e arisen making it desirable to 
economize on liver. At such times we have not hesitated to put the trout on a diet of 
pure mush. They rise to the surface for this food, sometimes meet it in the air, and 
rarely or ever alloAv a particle to reach the bottom. That the fish iiroduced by this 
diet are normal and healthy is beyond all question, and if evidence is Avanted it is to 
