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PKOPAGATION OF TKOUT IN AMERICA. 
Now that fish-breeding by the assistance of art has become a business 
of great magnitude in different parts of the world, and its pursuit vastly 
profitable, we have thought that, a description of the simplest and best 
method for the propagation of brook trout would be both interesting and 
valuable to our readers. 
Of the numerous species and various families of fish being both pro- 
pagated and improved by artificial culture, there are none so interesting 
as the genus Salmo ; and the branch of this family known — apart from 
the Latin phrases oifarrio and fontinalis — as the brook trout, is one of 
the most easily and economically propagated of the numerous species of 
fish in the United States, because it inhabits nearly all the spring 
streams north of the 40th degree of latitude. In most cases, therefore, 
in streams where trout are becoming eliminated by the nets, traps, and 
other cruel devices of the poacher, judicious game-laws should be enacted 
with suitable penalties for their infringement. This has been done in 
this State (New York) upon the application of the Sportsmen's Club. In 
addition to laws for preventing poaching, there should be a law enacted 
against the erection of dams on streams so constructed as to prevent fish 
from surmounting them, and the tumbling dam, with steps or stairs on 
the lower side, should supersede those now erected, so that trout and 
salmon may reach the heads of the streams to spawn. 
Next to the salmon, the brook trout is the best table-fish of our fresh 
water streams. Indeed, it has the advantage of the " royal salmon " in 
the sizes necessary for culinary purposes, being small enough to fry or 
broil, and large enough to boil. Among the reasons why the trout 
holds so high a rank in the angler's estimation are the facts that he is an 
intellectual creature and has evidently a will of his own. He looks 
sagacious and intelligent ; he sedulously avoids turbid waters ; loves the 
sparkling stream ; displays an ardent ambition to explore streams to 
their source ; is quick, vigorous and elegant in his movements ; likes to 
have the exclusive command of the stream ; keeps up a rigid system of 
order and discipline in the little community of which he is a member ; 
exhibits a remarkable degree of nicety and fastidiousness about his food ; 
is comparatively free from vulgar, low and grovelling habits, though 
addicted to the crime of cannibalism, and would eat a member of his 
own family without remorse ; but he entices his pursuer into the loveliest 
scenes of Nature's domains, and calls forth from man the utmost efforts 
of his ingenuity and skill, and preserves a superior and dignified de- 
meanour unattainable by any other living occupant of the streams. His 
physical constitution is also incomparably superior, and he boasts a 
prepossessing figure, moulded in strict conformity with the most refined 
principles of symmetrical proportion, sparkles in all the gorgeous colours 
