12 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
statement that “«f we want Mood anywhere , ice 
want it on the farm.” We hear a great deal rrow 
about thorough-bred Jerseys and Shorthorns 
and Southdowns, and our Walking and Talking 
friend from whom we learn so much every-month 
convinced us that we must at least have thor¬ 
ough-bred boars. I maintain that the king of 
all the thorougli-breds is the thorough-bred 
horse. I am glad to have pure-bred males for 
every kind of stock from cattle to chickens, but 
the one pure-blooded sire on which I depend 
not only for profit and economy of food and 
work, but for intelligence and kindly disposi¬ 
tion, and friendship as well, is 1 the thorough¬ 
bred horse. 
In these Horse Papers I shall endeavor to 
stem the tide that now sets so strongly in favor 
of fast-trotters (which are well enough in their 
way), and to call the attention of my readers to 
the importance of creating a class of farm horses 
which shall combine as many as possible of the 
most desirable qualities, with speed enough for 
all practical purposes; using as a means there¬ 
to the Thorough-bred “ blood ” horse, that is 
the English race-horse. This is beyond com¬ 
parison the most purely bred domestic animal 
ill the world, having, in this country no less 
than in England, a clearly recorded pedigree 
without flaw or defect, running back a hundred 
and forty years, and possessing more strongly 
than any other, the power of transmitting his 
excellent qualities to his progen}'. 
Then again, as “the master is half of the 
horse,” I shall try to set forth the duties which 
> the ownership of a fine animal imposes on the 
farmer; and to suggest improvements in our 
modes of treating the faithful friends who 
uncomplainingly do so much for us. 
Tim Bunker on Trout Brooks and a 
Hatching 1 House. 
It was one evening in November last year, 
that Mrs. Bunker lifted her gold-bowed spec¬ 
tacles, laid down the last Agriculturist and 
said: “ Timothy, when did you say Dr. Slasher 
was coming to look at that Trout brook?” 
“ I expect him here in the morning, Sally, 
and I want you to do your best on breakfast by 
seven o’clock. Let it be broiled chickens and 
Johnny cake in Hookertown style. The Doc¬ 
tor lives by eating, and he’ll come hungry.” 
'“Must be an extraordinary man to live in 
that way!” said Mrs. Bunker dryly. 
You see the way I came to send for the Doc¬ 
tor was this. I hold that what is worth doing at 
all, is worth doing well. Dr. Slasher had been 
growing trout some two years, had taken them 
in the egg, hatched them, fed, reared, and sold 
them and knew just how the thing was done. 
Besides he was a well-educated physician and 
had studied into the science of the business. 
If a wise man builds a house, he goes to an ar¬ 
chitect, who makes building his study, for a 
plan. I wanted to make fish ponds, and a 
hatching house, that would turn out trout as 
regularly as a hen-house turns out good broilers 
by the fourth of July. I knew something 
about growing chickens, but I had only read of 
fish raising in books. I had got a trout brook 
and springs, but I did not know certain, whether 
they would answer for this purpose or not. I 
had capital enough, but I did not want to lay 
out three thousand dollars, on my brook, and 
then find it was in the wrong place. That 
would be a good deal like building a dry dock 
on Hookertown creek. 
It was a sharp frosty morning when the Doc¬ 
tor knocked at my door. He was a little chunk 
of a fellow with bushy whiskers, dark hair and 
snapping eyes, that could look as far into a pine 
plank as anybody. Mrs. B’s coffee and chick¬ 
ens were discussed and we started for the brook. 
“Now,” says I, “Doctor, what I want to 
know of you is just this. Will this brook do to 
raise trout in, and if so, where will you make 
the ponds and put up the hatching house ?” 
“ I see trout in the brook,” said the Doctor, 
which is a good indication.” 
“ Yes,” said I, “ we have always caught trout 
here, but they may be hatched a good ways up 
stream, where the springs are.” 
“No,” said the doctor, “Here are the spawn¬ 
ing beds,” pointing to a long streak of coarse 
gravel in the bed of the brook, and the trout are 
now crawling over it, and preparing to deposit 
their eggs, if they have not already done it.” 
Sure enough, there were a dozen trout or 
more, stirring up the gravel with their tails, „ 
and having a very lively time. 
“ Thirty-eight degrees,” said the Doctor, pull¬ 
ing the thermometer out of the water. “ I 
thought it was colder, for there is ice formed on 
the edge of the brook a half inch thick. You 
must have springs not far above here to keep 
up the temperature ?” 
“ Yes the swamp above here is full of springs, 
and one is very large, that smokes like a coal¬ 
pit in the coldest weather.” 
“That is good,” said the Doctor; “for if this 
water is not warm enough, the spring can be 
easily brought into your hatching house. But 
I think your brook water, if it does not get be¬ 
low 38° in the coldest weather, will do very 
well. The hatching period of trout eggs in our 
brooks is about 120 days, which indicates the 
average temperature of the water at about 30°. 
In spring water of 50 degrees they will hatch 
in 40 days, but I notice that the trout do not 
lay their eggs in springs, but in the streams be¬ 
low where the water is much colder, and I 
have thought that colder water would give us 
stronger and better fish.” 
“ The brook never freezes up,” I said, “ It 
was once used to carry a saw-mill, and the 
pond that was made above would never freeze 
over hard enough to bear a team.” 
“ How is it about flooding in the spring fresh¬ 
ets?” asked the doctor. 
“ The basin above is very narrow and the 
brook rises in a swamp about a mile above this. 
Very little water collects in the basin, and I 
have never seen it raised more than a foot 
higher than it is now.” 
“ That is worth a heap of money to you,” 
said he. “ There are a great many brooks that 
have such floods that they tear away all dams 
that you put upon them. It i3 impossible to 
use the main stream for this business, and if 
used at all, the water must be diverted into small 
ponds, made at great expense for this purpose. 
Cheap dams witli flumes on the main stream 
will be safe enough here, and but one small 
side pond for the small trout will be necessary. 
The old channels of the brook will be better for 
the trout than anything you can make for them. 
The bottom is already lined with stone, and 
they are covered with water plants full of in¬ 
sects. See the water-cresses grow li&re luxuri¬ 
antly, and wherever that plant thrives, you can 
have trout. How is it about your brook in 
summer? Does it dry up?” 
“ It always runs a good stream in the dryest 
weather, though not perhaps more than a quar¬ 
ter as much as you now see.” 
“You have now,” said the Doctor, “at least 
1200 gallons per minute, and a 100 would be 
enough to do a large business. You have a 
stream good enough for the business. The next 
thing is the location of the dams, and flumes.” 
“ Why cannot we use these two old dams 
that served the saw-mill ?” I asked. 
“ How much fall is there between them ?” 
“At least 15 feet, and 10 or 12 below.” 
“ That Will do grandly,” said the Doctor. 
“ Use your upper dam to make a reservoir, put 
two dams between, making three ponds 150 
feet long or more. Put your hatching house 
just before the lower dam, and take your water 
for it from the pond above. Then make a 
small, side pond two or three feet higher than 
the first pond, and feed it from pond No. 2. 
Make a sluice-way from this small pond into 
the first for your spawners to go up. Each 
pond must have its flume and screens above 
and below, and be so constructed that you can 
shut off the water at pleasure, and drain the 
ponds. You want to control the trout while 
growing, and be able to capture them at your 
pleasure, to take the eggs or to kill them for 
market. This is easily done, if you put your 
flumes so that you can drain your ponds to the 
bottom.” 
“And what is the whole going to cost?” I 
asked the Doctor solemnly, for the thing began 
to look big. 
“Well,” said the Doctor, “I will contract to 
put you up an establishment herewith every¬ 
thing in working order for $2’500, and that is 
much less than it would cost on many brooks. 
But a good part of your work is already done.” 
“That is a big pile of money;” said I, “ to put 
into an experiment.” 
“It is no more an experiment,” said the Doc¬ 
tor, “than your raising chickens or pigs. The 
chickens die more or less every spring, but folks 
keep on raising them, and I suppose it pays. 
With right conditions of the water and good at¬ 
tendance I had much rather undertake to 
raise trout than any domestic animals. 1 They are 
quite sure not to be hurt by the wet or cold.” 
I thought over the Doctor’s visit through the 
winter, matured my plans, and in the spring 
broke ground. I have made five dams and 
flumes instead of three, and if the trout works 
succeed as well as they promise I shall put in 
more. I have visited all the trout-hatching 
houses I could hear of, and taken advantage of 
all their improvements, and made some of my 
own. In all the houses I saw, the hatching 
boxes were put upon the ground, or but a few 
inches above it, and the laborious business of 
examining the eggs and young fish for six 
hours or more daily had to be attended to on 
bended knees, or in a stooping posture. This 
was hard work for nothing. I put the boxes 
three feet above the floor, which makes this 
work easy. Coste’s boxes, in which the 
eggs rest upon glass rods, are a great improve¬ 
ment upon gravel. They need no boiling, 
they are more easily kept clean, the sediment 
if any remains in the waters falls below the 
eggs, and they are more rapidly examined and 
handled. I made the house very thorough!}', 
laying the walls in cement, and cementing tlie 
floor so that neither mouse nor rat can get at 
the eggs. The water is passed off from the 
boxes into four-inch tiles beneath the floor, 
and these are kept grated so that muskrats 
and other vermin cannot enter the house. How 
we stocked the ponds, and set the house to 
hatching eggs, I shall have to tell you in an¬ 
other letter. 
Hookertown , Conn ) Yours to Command, 
Dec.. 15, lhC'J. j Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
