210 
FOREST AND STREAM 
ited in the amount of smelts and other life it 
can sustain, as well as the rapidity with which 
it can replace those eaten by other fishes and 
otherwise destroyed. Concrete illustrations of 
this fact may be shown by computations. It is 
an established fact that the salmonids of the 
lake subsist largely upon the smelt. It may be 
safely assumed that each chinook eats an aver¬ 
age of at least ten smelts each day for, say, 200 
days. In that length of time, then, 5,000 salmon 
caught this year would have consumed 10,000,000 
smelts, at the average rate of 50,000 a day. 
Assuming an average length of each smelt as 
five inches and an average thickness of (4 inch 
through the body laterally, the average dorsal 
surface area of 10,000,000 smelts would be 12,- 
500,000 square inches, or an area equal to that 
of a brook four miles long having an average 
width of five feet, or equal to the area of the 
four principal brooks of Sunapee Lake for one 
mile from their mouths. The average distance 
ascended by smelts in these brooks is not over 
one-fourth of a mile. It is a high estimate to 
assume that the smelts ascending the brooks 
even during the height of their run occupy one- 
fourth of that area in any one night. The 
10,000,000 smelts, then, afford an equivalent of 
the runs for sixteen nights or about the length 
of their spawning season in 1910. It is a low 
estimate that one-fifth of the smelts constituting 
these runs were taken by man. Then, hypothet¬ 
ically assuming that 10,000,000 smelts ascended 
the brooks, 2,000,000 were caught, thus leaving 
for reproduction 8,000,000. But according to 
natural laws, under a natural balance 10,000,000 
smelts can produce no more than the same num¬ 
ber to take their place when their natural breed¬ 
ing term of life is ended. Therefore, if its aver¬ 
age breeding term of life is assumed to be only 
two years, only 5,000,000 smelts can be produced 
in one year to reach maturity and breed in their 
turn. In other words, it takes two years of 
breeding to produce 10,000,000 smelts averaging 
five inches in length to feed 5,000 salmon one 
year. Besides this, in order to maintain the 
stock they must produce the same number. Thus, 
according to the foregoing figures, it would be 
manifestly impossible for 10,000.000 smelts, by 
reproduction, to maintain themselves against the 
stated adverse conditions. It is perhaps fortunate 
for the smelt and trout that those six tons of 
salmon were caught, for had they lived and a 
full bill of fare been available, according to 
computation allowing 15-32 of a cubic inch to 
each smelt, they would have devoured about 2,180 
bushels of smelts in one season. 
However, a smelt five inches long produces 
about 6,000 eggs. Out of 2,913 smelts examined 
in 1910, 2,422 were males and 491, or about one- 
fifth, were females. This proportion of 10,000,000 
smelts or 2,000,000 females, would therefore pro¬ 
duce 12,000,000,000 eggs. If by conservation these 
eggs could be made to produce 75 per cent., there 
would be 9,000,000,000 of young in one season. 
It is probable that not even 25 per cent, of the 
eggs hatch under present conditions, but allow¬ 
ing 25 per cent., then by conservation there would 
be a gain of 6,000,000,000. As the smelts go to 
the lake early after hatching protection then 
ceases. According to that the gain from con¬ 
servation should be about 50 per cent, of the 
10,000,000. In that way only could the requisite 
15,000,000 smelts be produced. To the extent 
that the number of Chinooks exceed 5,000 the 
number of smelts eaten increases, if there are 
any more to be eaten, and there is no way to 
provide for this contingency save by importing 
the requisite number from outside sources. 
In the foregoing computation the number of 
smelts eaten by other fishes has not been taken 
into consideration excepting as one of the natu¬ 
ral competitory factors and one of those elements 
that prevents more than the normal increase. 
But a deficiency in the necessary supply of smelts 
for the salmon would have to be met by some 
other kind of food for the fish needs an abun¬ 
dance of food in order to reach a satisfactory 
size within its limited lifetime, and this would 
naturally be the kind with which it is most close¬ 
ly associated—the trout. To what extent the 
trouts already contribute to the food supply of 
the chinook is not known, but individuals con¬ 
taining trout have been observed, and this while 
smelts are abundant. 
A computation in reference to the trout may 
be at least of some interest. If each of those 
5,000 salmon should eat one trout each day for 
200 days (about 6 2-3 months) of one year, they 
would consume 1.000,000 trout; thus lacking only 
13,465 of the number shown by the records to 
have been planted in Sunapee Lake in the thirty 
years from 1880 to 1910. It is hardly conceivable 
that there are 1,000,000 trout in Sunapee Lake in 
any one year, at least within reach of the salmon. 
But there are some trout and that indicates that 
5,000 salmon do not eat one trout each day in 
200 days or even in one year, but if each of 5,000 
salmon should eat one trout in a year they would 
devour 5,000 trout in that length of time, or 
something over 16 2-3 per cent, of the recorded 
number planted in the ten years from 1900 to 
1910; nearly 50 per cent, of the largest planting 
of that time; and 83 1-3 per cent, of the recorded 
plant of 1910. 
While these computations are hypothetical, 
doubtless containing a number of fallacies, and 
by no means showing the actual conditions, they 
contain enough known facts to afford indications 
of the possible serious results of introduced com¬ 
petition. 
To furnish the angler with good fishing, enough 
fish to reasonably satisfy each angler is required. 
An increased number of anglers requires an in¬ 
creased number of fish, and even then they are 
not equally apportioned and a stock to satisfy 
each and all is hardly attainable within the stated 
limitations. 
It has been previously stated that the death of 
both male and female chinook invariably soon 
follows the spawning act. There are those who 
have thought that this fish habituated to a per¬ 
manent fresh water abode would reverse the laws 
of nature and survive the breeding period, but 
more than thirty years’ experience at the Tro- 
cadero Aquarium at Paris has proved that a 
change from normal to abnormal conditions 
works no miracles, and no modern prophet has 
as yet shown his ability to stay the sun in its 
course. Therefore a larger number of young 
is required to maintain the stock than if the fish 
lived for further reproduction. As the average 
age of maturity of the chinook is about four or 
perhaps five years, each year the stock resulting 
from the plant of the fourth or fifth preceding 
year is exhausted by being caught or by natural 
death. The increased number caught each year 
is in proportion to the number planted in some 
preceding year. The more planted the more are 
caught, apparently leaving but few, if any, more 
than of smaller plants to reproduce. 
Sunapee Lake does not afford suitable condi¬ 
tions for natural procreation of the species and 
all the evidence indicates that the chinook does 
not and cannot reach breeding condition in the 
lake in sufficient numbers to produce naturally 
or artificially an adequate self-sustaining stock. 
The demands of an annually increasing number 
of anglers cannot be supplied by plants equalling 
the largest plants of former years. Last sea¬ 
son's estimated catch of 5.000 salmon signifies 
an average of only one fish every four days to 
each of 200 anglers in 100 days’ fishing. 
If the planting of chinooks in Sunapee Lake 
is indefinitely continued, the lake will become a 
purely chinook lake depending wholly upon an¬ 
nual plants from outside sources. Such a pro¬ 
cedure is not only wasteful, extravagant and in¬ 
efficient, but is not fish-culture; in the latter 
sense amounting to about as much as banana 
culture in Labrador, where a supply of sun- 
ripened fruit is assured as long as green fruit 
can be secured from Cuba. What is said of 
Sunapee Lake in this connection will apply to 
any lake. Of course, different lakes differ in 
character and some may be more favorable to 
the chinook, in some respects, than is Sunapee 
Lake. But as a stock fish for them the same 
objections apply, differing only in degree. 
It is not the game qualities, but the novelty and 
exaggerated and mistaken notions regarding the 
chinook that afford anglers the present attraction 
over other salmonids. There are other species 
possessing all of the qualities that appeal to the 
angler, some of them superior, and none of them 
inferior, to those of the chinook. 
A fish is best suited to the body of water in 
which it finds the requisite conditions for its 
existence and the perpetuation of its kind, that 
is, growth and reproduction. Some species re¬ 
quire one set of conditions, some another, and 
no two kinds are adapted to exactly the same 
conditions. Therefore, the native forms, where 
they meet the requirements of the anglers, are 
eminently the best to conserve, cultivate or re¬ 
store, as the necessity requires, as they can be 
more economically maintained and controlled and 
will give the most permanent and satisfactory re¬ 
sults. In some instances a substitution is justi¬ 
fiable, but the substituted fish should be one that 
is the most nearly adapted to the obtaining con¬ 
ditions, at the same time conforming to the re¬ 
quirements of the angler. 
Among those fishes previously enumerated are 
some of which little is known. It is hazardous 
to take chances with them. But of those of 
which the most is known the native forms of 
the northeastern states should first be consid¬ 
ered, and of these the common trout is first in 
rank, everything being considered. It has the 
widest natural geographical distribution and is 
adapted to the most diverse conditions. For 
lakes now depleted but in which this trout has 
been noted for quantity, quality and the large 
size attained, and which have not become un¬ 
favorably modified, by all means this fish should 
be selected, for there are but few waters that af¬ 
ford such ideal conditions for the trout. 
The trout is an excellent gamefish and may be 
caught by any of the approved methods of an¬ 
gling. In the northeastern states it easily, con¬ 
veniently, and, therefore, economically, lends it¬ 
self to fish-culture, and is the equal in every way 
except size attained to the chinook, and, if per¬ 
mitted, lives to breed many times. 
Another native,- the landlocked salmon, follows 
as a close second, and is suited to waters in 
which the trout does not so well thrive. If the 
lake is sufficiently large and abundant food is 
available the salmon reaches a much larger size 
than is attained by the trout, but trout and sal¬ 
mon do not seem to thrive together and the dis¬ 
advantage seems to be wholly on the side of the 
trout. This salmon, under favorable conditions, 
grows as large as the chinook under the same 
conditions. As a rule it possesses more of the 
so-called game qualities than the chinook, being 
far more active. Like the trout, it readily takes- 
the artificial fly at the proper season, which the 
chinook seldom does at any season, and it is 
fully as good for the table. It also is more- 
