14 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
during the period of their sojourn in fresh water, or that artificial propagation of the 
young and their distribution to the headwaters of the streams shall be prosecuted on 
a scale adequate to compensate for the interference with and the curtailment of natural 
reproduction by the operation of the fisheries. 
If it be the policy of the Government to depend upon natural reproduction to 
maintain supply, this can be made effectual only by the enactment and enforcement of 
such regulation of the fisheries as will assure adequate reproduction under natural 
conditions. The different agencies which may be invoked, either separately or in con- 
junction, to accomplish this end are: 
(i a ) A weekly close season from Saturday evening to Monday morning. 
(b) A close season during September and October of each year. 
(c) The establishment of national salmon parks or salmon reservations, as 
proposed by Dr. Livingston Stone. 
(d) Absolute prohibition of the capture of salmon by the use of nets or other 
apparatus within 100 yards of the mouth of any river. 
(e) The prohibition of the use of more than one seine in the same seine berth. 
(/) The leasing of the privilege of taking salmon and the limitation of the 
catch, in accordance with the recommendation of the Commissioner of 
Fish and Fisheries, based upon continued and careful investigations of 
the conditions of the fisheries. 
The establishment of a weekly closed season will assure that some proportion of the 
run will succeed in reaching their spawning-grounds, will of course have a conserva- 
tive influence in keeping up supply, will render slower the depletion of the waters, 
and will probably prevent the extermination of the salmon. 
The establishment of a close season during September and October will permit the 
schools of salmon approaching the coast during this period to enter the rivers and 
spawn unmolested. The conservative influence of this measure will depend of course 
upon the number of salmon which approach the coast only after the opening of the 
close season. 
The establishment of national salmon parks or salmon reservations , as proposed by 
Dr. Livingston Stone in a paper read before the American Fisheries Society, would be 
an important factor in maintaining production and could be accomplished with rela- 
tively little cost. The importance of this agency as a means of maintaining the sup- 
ply is so interestingly and forcibly presented by Dr. Stone in the article referred to 
that it is deemed appropriate to reproduce it here as published in Forest and Stream 
of June 16, 1892: 
A NATIONAL SALMON PARK, 
[A paper read before tbe American Fisheries Society.] 
Who would have thought thirty years ago that the creation of a national park in this country 
would he the means of rescuing the buffalo from extinction? Who thought then that anything was 
needed to rescue the buffalo? The buffalo roamed in myriads over the plains and mountain slopes of 
the central portions of the United States and were so innumerable that, with the exception of a few 
far-sighted persons, no one thought that this noble race of animals was even in danger.' The supply 
seemed inexhaustible and the species at least safe from extinction. 
How soon we found out our mistake and how suddenly the change came. The note of alarm had 
hardly been sounded long enough to be distinctly comprehended over the country before the buffalo 
were gone — all gone practically, except a few straggling survivors which, if they had not found refuge 
