A Historical Sketch of Fish-culture. 
87 
since the earliest ages of history, and is mentioned in their 
writings 2100 years before the Christian Era. It was known 
to the ancient Egyptians and well known to the Romans, 
and since their day has been practised in nearly even" coun¬ 
try of Europe up to the present time. It has crossed the 
seas and flourishes in our own land even better than it does 
in Europe. Undeveloped for many centuries beyond the 
mere collecting of natural spawn, or the preserving of fish 
in natural or artificial ponds, this art had never reached any 
important or scientific advancement until Jacobi’s discovery 
of Artificial Propagation in the year 1741. From that time 
it has steadily increased, until by the perfections of our own 
age it has assumed the proportions of a Science , one of such 
importance to man that great governments do not disdain 
to take part in it for the public good, to make laws for its 
protection, to enlist the aid of scientists in its behalf and 
to devote large sums of money to its maintenance and en¬ 
couragement, as they do for Agriculture. The French, with 
great propriety, call this science Aqua-culture , thus at once 
comparing it to Agriculture in which the Aqua , or water, 
is cultivated in place of the Ager % or field: the comparison 
is a just one, and indeed if fishing may be said to be “the 
harvest of the sea,” surely Aqua-culture, or Water-farming, 
is the planting and the tilling thereof. 
The methods employed by the Chinese, and first brought 
to the notice of Europeans in 1735 by the Jesuit Mission¬ 
ary, P£re Duhalde, were very crude. In April and May 
many fish — carp, perch, bream, etc.— ascend the Yang-tse- 
kiang and other Chinese rivers and their tributaries, even 
penetrating into the irrigating canals and ditches among 
the rice-fields, in order to spawn. At this time the rivers 
are barred, sometimes for several leagues’ distance, by hur¬ 
dles of osier upon which the spawn floating down stream 
is gathered, or by stakes around which brush-wood is woven 
upon which the adhesive eggs may be deposited: the spawn 
is then collected in vessels, or the brush with its adhering 
eggs is taken apart, and is sold all over the Empire to be 
