1884.] 
AMEEICAE' AGEIOULTUEIST. 
32T 
The New York Fishery Commission. 
KOEERT B. ROOSEVELT. 
The first Legislative enactment in reference to 
the artificial culture of fish was jjassed in the State 
of New York in the year 1868. It was followed up 
in the sutceeding year, that of 1869, by the crea¬ 
tion of a Fishery Commission, consisting of ex-Gov- 
ernor Horatio Seymour, Seth Green and Robert 
B. Roosevelt. Mr. Green withdrew in order to 
accept the superintendeney of the work, and Mr. 
Seymour subsequently resigned. The Board to¬ 
day is composed of Robert B. Roosevelt, the Pres¬ 
ident, Gen. Richard U. Sherman, Secretary, Mr. 
is $206,131.93, including the .sum paid for the hatch¬ 
ery house at Caledonia, and tlie fitting up of a 
subordinate establishment at Cold Spring on Long 
Island. For thirteen years there has been an an¬ 
nual distribution of fish—a year being required to 
commence operations, and one being lost by the 
veto of the appropriation by Gov. Cornell. Dur¬ 
ing that time there have been hatched, and turned 
loose, in their native or other appropriate waters 
in this State, 55,554,300 shad, 11,519,000 salmon 
trout, 6,909,200 brook trout, 4.499,000 California 
trout, 45.300 hybrid trout, 2,000 Kennebec salmon, 
678,000 California salmon, 18,000 land-locked sal¬ 
mon, 2,480,000 white-fish, 900,000 frost fish, 34,920 
mature black bass, 3,000 mature pike-perch, 1.55,000 
pulled down to give place to tlie more pretentious 
structure, shown in the engraving given below. 
The New York Commission can claim the credit 
for originating most of these discoveries. Mr. 
Seth Green seems to have a genius for applying the 
exact remedy for every need in fish eulture, and he 
has been well seconded by his assistants, and espe¬ 
cially by his brother, Monroe A. Green, who is one 
of the ablest practical fish culturists in the country, 
lie discovered the process of dry impregnation, one 
of the first great strides in the art, and which was 
afterwards imported from Europe, whither he had 
contributed it as a scientific discovery. He after¬ 
wards invented the shad-hatching box, which con¬ 
tains the underlying principle of all subsequent 
THE NEW FISH-HATCHINa HOUSE AT CALEDONIA, N. Y. 
Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
Eugene G. Blackford and Mr. AVilliam H. Bow¬ 
man. The first work done by the Commission was 
the hatching of 2,604,000 shad, 280,000 salmon- 
trout and 1,000,000 white-fish in the year 1870. 
It was not until the year 1875 that the Commission 
was authorized to purchase a State Establishment 
and commence the breeding of trout. The place 
chosen for this purpose was the old hatchery which 
had once belonged to Seth Green, and where he had 
achieved his reputation and made the first real suc¬ 
cesses in fish breeding in this country. It had been 
sold to Mr. Collins, but as it was regarded as one of 
the most eligible sites in the State, for such an enter¬ 
prise, it was purchased at a cost of fourteen thous¬ 
and dollars, and put at once in efficient and practi¬ 
cal, but by no means showy, order. The record 
of the tumble down shanties, and board-banked 
ponds, is far from a discreditable one, and will 
answer the question often and properly asked, 
Tvhether fish culture has paid. 
It was stated by the Hon. Theodore Lyman, at 
the last meeting of the Fish-Cultural Society in 
Washington that $1,300,000 had been expended in 
fish eulture in this country alone. If so, but a very 
small portion of this vast sum has been expended 
in the State of New York, and the larger part of 
fit has been expended by the United States Com¬ 
mission, in scientific investigations, in displays at 
' foreign exhibitions, in studying the habits of fish, in 
printing learned disquisitions on ichthyology, and 
in exploring the bottom of the ocean for new forms 
of piscatory life, all proper expenditures, but 
cannot in any way be construed into fish culture. 
The amount of money expended by the New York 
vCommission from the year 1868 to 1883 inclusive 
sturgeons, beside other minor fish. The first dis¬ 
tribution of brook trout was made in 1874, when 
the Establishment that was afterwards purchased 
was leased with a view to its subsequent acquisition. 
The California or rainbow trout all came from 
one lot of three hundred eggs purchased in Cali¬ 
fornia from a private individual, and received not 
in the best of condidion. The first distribution 
was made in 1879, and some of the original stock 
are still living, and promise to keep up their fer¬ 
tility. The hybrids are a cross between the lake 
trout and brook trout, and promise an improvement 
on both species. They have shown themselves 
to be abundantly reproductive, although, among 
the eggs, are found more nnirnpregnated ones 
than among the pure breeds of either species. 
The Kennebec salmon did not seem to be want¬ 
ed in any part of the State, and so, although many 
were hatched, they were turned loose in Cal¬ 
edonia Brook, and no account was kept of them. 
Little was done with California salmon as it was not 
found, in a single instance, that they survived their 
journey to the ocean, or returned to their place of 
birth. The black bass and allied species are not 
hatched at all, they are distributed to new or de¬ 
pleted waters. It is found that they can attend to 
• their own reproduction as well as it can be done for 
them. They have the instinct not only of building 
their nests, but of watching over and bringing up 
their young. Indeed it is doubted whether black 
bass fry could live unless they had the care of their 
parents. A few pairs of black bass will stock a lake 
or river if the_v are not fished out for a few years. 
Immense strides have been made in fish culture 
since the old house was built, and before it was 
modifications of hatching jars, boxes, or imple¬ 
ments, taking the idea of the upward motion of 
water rising from a spring as its foundation theory. 
Mr. Green introduced the use of layers of trays in¬ 
stead of placing single trays one beside the other, 
and invented the carrying-box with flannel drawers 
for the transportation of eggs, the methods of 
packing eggs still in vogue, and a thousand and 
one minutiae, many of which have been imitated 
and claimed by others. To-day, now that the an¬ 
cient time-eaten, bng-bored and weather-stained 
shanty has been replaced by a reimtable building, 
with some pretentions to architectural attractions, 
and the ponds have been rebuilt with walls which 
will hold water and trout securely, and in spite of 
the fact that the State owns no individual right of 
entrance, and not half enough ground for ponds, 
there is no establishment in the world where as 
good work is done as at the hatchery at Caledonia. 
Farmers should bear in mind that water-culture 
can be made a part of agriculture, not that it is 
expected that farmers should devote their time to 
hatching the eggs of trout, or of any of the more 
tender varieties, or of necessity to the hatching of 
any eggs at all, if they have not the special taste 
and the leisure, but where there are streams on, 
or adjoining the farm, they should give their at¬ 
tention to introducing the proper kind of fish, es¬ 
pecially such as one of the different species of bass. 
These will increase rapidly, and take care of their 
own young, and by devouring useless varieties, will 
supply food for the table, to say nothing of that 
which most of us enjoy, a day’s sport with the 
rod. Such fish and full instructions can always be 
obtained from the Superintendent at Caledonia. 
