362 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
Banks received at par. All money remitted by mail, post- 
age paid, will be at the risk of the Publisher. 
Reader ! will you not use your influence to form a 
Club at once, in your vicinity, and forward us the list be- 
fore the beginning of our new volume, in January ? 
Address; Wm. S. Jones, Augusta, Ga. 
SEE TERMS ON LAST PAGE. 
^kitWintt (Bcnnnm^ null 
A CHAPTER ON FISH— FISH PONDS AND ARTI- 
FICIAL FISH BREEDING. 
BY REV. JOHN BACHMAN, D. D., OF CHARLESTON. 
Read before the State Agricultural Society of South Caro- 
lina, at Columbia, 1855. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — As considerable in- 
terest has recently been excited in Europe in reference to 
the subject of Artificial Fish Breeding, and as some in- 
quiries have been addressed to the Editors of our Southern 
Agricultural journals, and several applications been made 
to us, individually, in regard to artificial ponds for the 
breeding of fresh- water fish, we will, as far as we are able, 
comply with the wishes of our agricultural friends by 
giving a few hints on the general subject of Fish and Fish 
Breeding. Our views are principally the result of person- 
al observation and experience, extending through a long 
course of years, on a subject which, although pursued in 
broken intervals of time, has greatly interested us. We 
j|pmise by stating to our readers that we have neither 
ti^e or space in this article to treat any part of this sub- 
j^t fully. We shall frequently only state our convic- 
tions, which, in our minds, are facts, without entering into 
any details of facts and arguments. To treat this subject 
fully would require volumes, A hint, however, thrown 
out at random awakens a train of thought in the reflect- 
ing mind, leading to farther observation and experiment, 
and often to beneficial results. 
The seas and the rivers, as well as the earth and the air, 
are peopled with living things. All were created for the 
support and comfort of man, of whom God said : “Let us 
make man in our image, after our likeness ; and let them 
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl 
of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth, and 
over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” 
And now the first naturalist received his commision, more 
imposing than all the parchments issued by the most 
learned societies in the world, in these memorable v/ords : 
“And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast 
of the field, and every fo wl of the air and brought them to 
Adam to see what he would call them ; and whatsoever 
Adam called every living creature that was the name 
thereof.” The office of the naturalist has, therefore, it 
must be conceded, claims to the highest antiquity and the 
sanction of the Supreme Ruler of the world. 
Could we but dive into the waters and study the in- 
stincts and habits of fishes, and write their biographies as 
we do those of men, of quadrupeds and birds, we would 
find ourselves traversing a new world and be enabled to 
write a very interesting chapter on those now blank pages 
in the history of nature, which remain for future observing 
naturalists to fill up. When they do appear, the ever inquis- 
itive mind of man will have opened to him a new fountain 
of knowledge. There he will read of instincts and habits 
and passions, of conjugal attachments and parental protec- 
tion, of the love and the hate — the sociality of some species 
and the ferocity and interminable warfare of other tribes; 
in a word, the world within the ocean and beneath the 
waters of the streams and the lakes, is peopled with races 
whoseinstincts lead them to engage in various pursuits, and 
where the ravenous fishes are designed like ravenous beasts 
and birds of prey; to check the too rapid multiplication of 
some species and preserve an equilibrium in this world 
of waters. 
Among those appointed agents to controll these masses 
that people the waters, is man himself He is charged 
with a commission to study their names and habits, to 
appropriate them to his use, and by a law of nature he is 
permitted to derive the same pleasure in the pursuit that 
is derived from all other researches after knowledge. 
It must be admitted that every effort that has a tendency 
to multiply and cheapen food and thus afford support to 
millions of our race, must secure the countenance and ap- 
probation of the philanthropist at all times. We are 
scarcely aware of the immense numbers of the human 
race that are supplied with cheap and whosesome food 
from the waters of the seas, the lakes, rivers and streams. 
The most important cities of the world are maritime. The 
sea, not only giv^ wings to commerce, but it furnishes us 
with the oil that reeds our lamps — the turtles and terra- 
pins — the lobster, the crab, the prawn, tire parent of the 
shrimp — and other crustacise — the oyster and other shell 
fish, and an endless variety of the finny tribes, which 
serve to cheapen our markets and afford wholesome food 
to the poor and delicacies to the rich. Very sad and dis- 
tressing would be the conditiou of millions of the inhabi- 
tants of large maritime cities, if the waters should cease 
to yield up their treasures to the craving appetites of 
men. 
Before we sat down to write a few thoughts on the sub- 
ject of fishes and their propagation, we obtained the 
“Treatise on Artificial Fish Breeding, translated and Edit- 
ed by W. H. Fry,” published by Appleton & Co.,N. Y., 
under a hope that we possessed, in this work, all that was 
essential on this subject. It is a creditable translation of 
the reports on the subject, made to the French Academy 
and the French Government in favor of the two fishermen, 
Gehin & Remy, who re-discovered this mode of artificial 
fish breeding — the particulars of the previous discovery 
as pursued in England, together with a translation of 
portions of Jacobus full and explicit Essay on the same 
subject, written nearly a century ago, are also given, to 
which are added several sensible papers extracted from 
Bell’s Life in London, by two anonymous authors. 
We find, however, that nearly the whole book, although 
the translations and selections are fair and creditable, is 
devoted to instructions in breeding a single species — the 
Salmon. It may, therefore, prove a valuable guide to the 
inhabitants in the vicinities of Nortjiern rivers ; but, as 
we fear, the salmon can never, even by artificial breeding, 
be introduced into our Southern waters, the Vk^ork, except 
as a guide to the breeding of other species, will be of no 
particular benefit to us. 
We may, perhaps, here be excused for offering a few 
brief allusions to some of the statements contained in that 
work. In a note to the preface, a slur is thrown on men 
of science, who are dubbed “Judges, Doctors, Professors.’^ 
-. 1 ; if. ■if- if if 
The obfuscated vanity of a few bewildered fogies who can 
there make speeches ofv/hich they know nothing, or read 
dull translations from the French or Dutch,” &c. This 
might have been omitted without any injury to the sale of 
the book, as we will show presently. In another part of 
the work the Editor, Gadenier, in puffing the worthy 
French fishermen, says:— “The discovery of Gehin & 
