Vol. LVI. No. 2479. NEW YORK, JULY 31, 1897. 
FISH BREEDING ON THE FARM. 
PROFITABLE AND PLEASANT WORK. 
The California or Rainbow Trout. 
One of the most profitable special cultures on farms 
that are provided with a good supply of running 
water that may be controlled by means of a dam, is 
the rearing of some valuable kind of fish. Of all fish, 
the brook trout is the most valuable, either for home 
use or for sale. It is very easily reared when there is 
a pond supplied with a spring brook of 
clear water that will not get warmer 
in the summer than 80 degrees. It is 
one of the easiest things to rear these 
fish by thousands in a small piece of 
water economically used. As an in¬ 
stance of this, my own experience may 
be given. Ten years ago, I procured a 
few of the Rainbow or California trout, 
and planted them in a pond on my 
farm through which a small river runs. 
Only 100 small fish were turned into 
the water early in the spring. The 
next summer., one ten inches long was 
taken, showing that the growth in one 
year was from two inches to ten. The 
second year, one 22 inches long was 
taken, that weighed 2 H pounds. Since 
then, these fish have spread from my 
waters down the stream and into the 
large rivers, even into the Tennessee, 
200 or 300 miles from where they were 
first planted. The photograph of two 
taken three years ago, both at one cast 
of a fly, is reproduced at Fig. 205 ; the 
two-foot rule alongside of the fish tells 
the exact truth of this matter, without 
any fish story being suspected. Fish 
of seven pounds weight are now quite 
commonly taken a few miles down the 
stream, and at Asheville, fish even 
larger than this have been taken in 
the French Broad River, and sold in 
the market there for salmon. This 
river is one of the large tributaries of 
the Tennessee, into which our streams 
flow. 
At $1 a pound, fish of this size are a 
pretty good sort of live stock to rear, 
and as they cost nothing but the use of 
the land, and some little attention, 
without any feeding, under the right 
management, there is, unquestionably, 
a wide opening for the addition of this 
business to the ordinary farm work. 
The California trout is commonly 
known as the Rainbow trout from the 
beautiful iridescence of its scales ; for 
it is furnished with minute pearly 
scales which reflect all the hues of the 
rainbow very beautifully. It has a 
broad crimson band along each side, 
and is without the bright red spots of 
the common brook trout. It may re¬ 
lieve the minds of some interested to 
know that this fine fish lives in entire 
harmony with the brook trout, and al¬ 
though I have carefully examined the stomachs of 
every fish I have taken, and there have been hundreds 
of them, I never found a trace of any other fish or of 
the eggs in them. They feed on frogs, newts, craw¬ 
fish, and the minute vegetation which grows on sub¬ 
merged timber, or on the stems of aquatic plants. 
The flesh of this fish is a rather deep red, is not quite 
so solid in texture as that of the brook trout, and not 
of such a delicate sweet flavor. But it is a big fish, 
grows wonderfully fast, as the facts given show, and 
increases very rapidly. The two fish shown at Fig. 
205, weighed together 4% pounds. We owe this fine 
fish to the enterprise of the United States Fish Com¬ 
mission, whose labors have added so much to the 
wealth of the nation in this respect, in the many 
millions of fish, and eggs of fish, they have dis¬ 
tributed or planted in both fresh and salt waters. 
For the rearing of fish of the best kind, running 
water is indispensable, but a small stream may be 
made to go a long way by the right management. A 
pond that remains stagnant for a few weeks may do 
for carp, but for bass or trout a flowing stream is in¬ 
dispensable. The temperature may go up to 80 de¬ 
grees for a few weeks ; in this case, some shelter is 
to be provided by floating screens under which the 
fish may hide. With an adequate supply of water, 
no feeding is necessary, but a good many fish, enough 
for the family supply and a good surplus for sale, 
may be reared with a very good profit, far surpassing 
that from any kind of poultry. The general manage¬ 
ment must depend on the supply of water, and it dif¬ 
fers considerably as this may be sufficient for ordi¬ 
nary natural culture of the fish or for the artificial 
method. I have both methods in use, the artificial 
culture for the rearing of small trout for the supply 
of two large ponds, which are fished considerably 
every summer by the visitors to this place. These 
have found that there is excellent trout fishing in the 
very heart of the Southern States, where it is sup¬ 
posed that speckled trout are as impossible as the 
Arctic whale would be. But we have 
innumerable springs flowing down the 
mountain sides, making considerable 
streams on the flats, and forming 
numerous picturesque cascades, which 
fully aerate the water and thus make 
it specially fitted for supporting large 
quantities of fish. 
The artificial method consists in 
providing a series of small, narrow 
ponds side by side for economy of 
ground, and a stream of clear, cool 
water flowing through the series. It 
is desirable to have these small ponds 
on different levels, so that the water 
may flow over a dam and thus have as 
much exposure to the air as possible, 
for it is, in these cases, the supply of 
air and not of food that is the main 
requisite. We may feed thousands of 
fish, but we cannot so well pump air 
into the water as we can throw into it 
a quantity of food. Fish, of course, 
need an adequate supply of air to sup¬ 
port life, and this they get from the 
water, which holds a large quantity of 
it in solution as well as in mere mix¬ 
ture. Water is a greedy solvent of 
air, and will absorb, in addition, a 
large quantity of oxygen, so that the 
fish easily get their needed supply of 
oxygen, which is provided by every 
shower and every breeze that ruffles 
the surface of the water in which they 
live. But in case there is only a small 
supply of water, even this may be 
managed by forcing air into it to ac¬ 
commodate a large number of fish in a 
quite small pond. But in practice, 
this is rarely thought of except for 
aquariums, where it is not easy to 
change the water often enough other¬ 
wise. But much may be done in a 
small way by making a few small falls 
in a brook by means of stones placed 
in the bed, so as to make ripples and 
so expose the water to the action of 
the air. Thus by these ways of in¬ 
creasing the vitality of the water, a 
thousand or two of fish may be crowded 
into quite a small quantity of water, 
not over a hundred or two feet long 
and 10 or 12 wide. 
A pond may be made quite easily in a 
swamp, of which the bottom is spriDgy. 
I once dug out a quantity of swamp 
muck for use as an absorbent in the 
stables, and made a series of fish ponds in doing this. 
These ponds were 50 feet long, 10 feet wide and 
averaged five feet deep. The division was a mere 
bank of the muck left in the diggingfor convenience, 
so that the water from one being dug could be baled 
out and the muck left dry as nearly as possible for 
ease of digging it out. It was dug out by means of a 
big grain scoop, which was handled very skillfully by 
a stout Bohemian whom I found had done such work 
in his native country. The cost was 10 cents for a 
CALIFORNIA OR RAINBOW TROUT. Fig. 205 . 
