182 PROPAGATION OP TROUT IN AMERICA. 
away with Long Island trout, which epicures consider superior to trout 
of most of the streams in the interior of the State. He has recently 
stocked extensive preserves in Connecticut and in the interior of the 
State of Pennsylvania, and from his experience, having been engaged 
many years at propagating trout and stocking preserves, he is the most 
competent and reliable person that we know of, unless Mr. Ramsbottom 
of Islip, would engage to stock a preserve, either artificially or with 
fingerlings. He is now engaged in propagating salmon, trout, and black 
bass, in the waters known as the Snedicor Preserve, near Islip. Mr. 
Ramsbottom has recently been engaged in re-stocking many salmon 
rivers of Ireland by means of artificial propagation. His father is now 
engaged at the business on some of the Scottish rivers, and his brother 
is stocking the streams of Australia with salmon. We anticipate great 
benefit from the presence of Mr. Ramsbottom, who contemplates stock- 
ing with salmon many rivers in this State. 
As fish-culture by artificial means has been successfully pursued for 
several centuries in Christendom, being an invention of the monks, 
assisted in its discovery by information gathered from Catholic mission- 
aries in China, or on the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, therefore 
the feasibility of artificial propagation at this late day has become esta- 
blished in every intelligent mind ; but it has been from recent experi- 
ments that the commercial world has opened its argus eye to its thousand 
per cent, profit. 
In order to approach a data from which to approximate the profit of 
propagating trout, we will instance the increase from a pair of salmon — 
for salmon may be propagated as easily as trout, and as cheaply here as 
in any other part of the world. It is estimated that after all drawbacks, 
and an unusual number of disasters, that from a pair of salmon three 
thousand grilse will return to the river in which they were hatched. It 
is true that twenty thousand left the spawning-bed, but the host had 
dwindled to three thousand. Now fifteen hundred per cent, is no mean 
interest on any stock, and at an average of ten pounds each, this pair of 
salmon would yield 30,000 dollars. But trout are not liable to the 
dangers to which the salmon is exposed, and we therefore conclude that, 
after the work of propagating trout is fairly established, it will yield at 
least five thousand per cent. 
The question should be with those who desire to form trout preserves 
for profit or recreation, which is the best method of stocking their waters ? 
Should it be with live trout, or by artificial propagation in hatching from 
the ova. We incline to the live trout process in this country, because 
the preserve may be stocked with trout of any size, and at the risk and 
trouble of stocking your preserves by the propagator, who takes the 
contract and risk of supplying you at a modest price per thousand fish, 
the price, of course, depending on the size. By thus stocking your pre- 
serve once, your trouble and expense is ended with that investment. 
You may then draw from your own preserve the means for artificial 
