THE PROPAGATION OF TROUT. 349 
shallow water, say from two inches to 3 inches deep, "but as they increase 
in size the water should be increased in depth. By the first of Novem- 
ber, if well fed, they will be from three inches to 5 inches long. At this 
time the water may be increased to the depth of three feet. 
The most difficult period in growing trout artificially is about the 
time they commence feeding. This period is from forty days to sixty 
days after hatching, according to the temperature of the water. At this 
time a large proportion of them are very weak, and are entirely unable 
to stand the least current, and consequently are carried with the current 
through the whole length of the hatching-box against the screen (if one) at 
the lower end of the box, and are soon suffocated and die. I. have lost them 
by the thousand in that way. To obviate this, put a tank 12 feet square 
at the lower end of the hatching-box, so that the water will run into it, 
with a gentle current, carrying the weak trout with it into the tank, 
where they can rest in still water from 2 to 3 inches deep. In this way 
they will soon recover and come into the very slight current to look for food, 
and, as they grow stronger, run up the hatching-box again. By this ar- 
rangement I have decreased the mortality so that I lose but a very small 
percentage compared to what I did before. 
I first feed boiled eggs rubbed very fine, also lobbard milk beaten 
very fine. One egg will feed several hundred thousand trout a day. 
After they get a little larger I feed hashed liver and lobbard milk. 
Trout feed and grow well on meat of any kind, but will not eat any 
vegetable matter with me. 
The cheapest dam, when the soil will answer, is of dirt. When it is 
too porous, it can be built with a double stone wall, with a two-inch 
space between, and this filled with water lime grout ; or, when clay is at 
hand, it can be built of dirt with a foot of clay in thickness, the whole 
length of the dam in the centre, from bottom to top ; or with matched 
plank, as may be the cheapest and most handy to obtain. 
Depopulated streams where trout have once flourished, canbe restocked 
with spawn, or young trout with but proper spawning beds prepared, 
they would increase at little expense, and with wonderful rapidity, and 
if protected as private streams afford all the sport one or two anglers 
with fly and rod could desire, and furnish a meal of trout daily for a 
large family during the fishing season, and, if the stream is of some size, 
a large amount for sale in addition. By putting a small dam across the 
stream to raise the water a few feet, with a screen on top to prevent the 
trout from running over, with the creek well gravelled above to the 
spring, so as to make good spawning beds, the trout would increase 
naturally tens of thousands yearly, and produce a large income at the 
-present price of trout, 1 dol. per pound. 
There is a small spring brook in the town of Springwater, dammed 
and screened in this way, where the trout have increased naturally in a 
few years to over 100,000, and hundreds of them to over two pounds 
in weight each. I am told that the proprietor has lately sold the ponds 
