SALMON, AMERICA’S MOST VALUABLE FISH 
203 
Photograph by Shirley C. Hulse 
THE CAZADERO DAM, ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER, OREGON 
Note the fish ladder just to the right of the dam. The fish attack the fall along its entire length. 
The Cazadero Dam is 40 feet high, so of course it is impassible, but the fish never seemed discouraged. 
Morning and evening, all during the run, they leaped at the foot of the apron, apparently undaunted by 
the heavy blows received in landing on the bucket or the rocks. The hatchery is located in a curve of the 
big flume leading from the dam, and about a quarter of a mile downstream. 
It is true as a general proposition that 
the fish hatched in a particular stream 
return to that stream to spawn, but this 
is largely because that is the most natural 
and most accessible place to go, and it is 
more remarkable when they go else¬ 
where, as they frequently do. 
salmon’s instinct not unfathomable 
The schools of salmon when sojourn¬ 
ing in the ocean, preparing for their all- 
important function, do not roam many 
miles distant from the mouth of the par¬ 
ticular stream in which they were born 
and spent the early months of their life. 
Having reached the proper age, they are 
impelled by the spawning instinct to 
move shoreward, and they eventually 
come within the influence of the fresh 
water discharged into ocean, gulf, or bay 
by a stream that is more likely to have 
been the “parent stream” than another. 
It thus happens that streams pouring a 
vast volume of fresh water into the 
sea, like the Columbia and Fraser, and 
streams whose mouths are more or less 
remote from others, like the Sacramento, 
are likely to induce the return of a large 
proportion of the fish that originally pro¬ 
ceeded therefrom. 
On the other hand, there is no reason 
to doubt that the salmon spawned in con¬ 
tiguous coastal streams or in particular 
tributaries of a large river return indif¬ 
ferently to any of those streams or tribu¬ 
taries, depending on conditions (storms 
at sea, floods, temperature of coastal or 
river water, enemies, etc.), which vary 
from season to season. 
GOVERNMENT AND STATE EFFORTS TO 
INCREASE THE SALMON SUPPLY 
The artificial propagation of salmon in 
the streams of the Pacific seaboard be¬ 
gan at a comparatively early date and 
has continued with yearly increasing ex¬ 
tent and importance, so that at the pres¬ 
ent time more hatcheries are devoted to 
the Pacific salmons than to any other 
fishes of the Western Hemisphere. The 
vast interests at stake have appeared to 
warrant and to require all the monev that 
could properly be expended by the Federal 
and State governments for salmon culture. 
