May 25, 1907.] 
ably in Round Lake, and the committee began 
Friday to investigate the location and arrange 
for building the broodery. The broodery will 
be constructed by fencing off a portion of water 
at some point around the lake, probably in the 
j ; rear of the Rush and Adair cottages, where it 
. will be fed by running water from the channel 
I between Shriner and Round lakes. Wire screens 
I covered with cheese cloth will be stretched across 
the inlet and outlet and a body of water prob- 
| ably 150 feet long by 50 feet wide will be wired 
i in. This place will have to be cleaned out and 
supplied with moss and all large fish must be 
I removed. The water in the broodery must run 
j in depth from six to seven inches to four or five 
I feet. When the small bass are caught they will 
be placed in the broodery and fed on insects and 
ground fish and meal. In such a broodery as 
described 250,000 bass can be raised. In the fall 
they will be divided up and distributed to the 
different lakes in the county by the association. 
Brooderies are now being operated at Rome 
City, Lake George, James Lake, LaPorte, Winona 
and other places. These brooderies will supply 
probably 5,000,000 large mouth black bass for 
stocking Indiana lakes this year. 
Mr. Sweeney said he was pleased to observe 
that the practice of netting was being broken 
up in Whitley county. N. M. 
• 
More About Brown Trout. 
Bennington, Vt., May 15.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Since the publication of the article en¬ 
titled “Brown Trout vs. Brook Trout” in Forest 
and Stream of April 20, I have received a num- 
l ber of letters from various, authorities expressing 
their opinion on the subject, among others being 
j the official views of the Bureau of Fisheries at 
Washington, D. C., as outlined by the Commis¬ 
sioner, Hon. George M. Bowers. It is evident 
! to me from many of these opinions that the 
j parties do not understand our position. We 
1 brown trout enthusiasts do not advocate any- 
thing radical at all, nor do we now or at any 
other time favor the indiscriminate planting of 
! Salmo fario in our native trout streams. As 
| Forest and Stream puts it editorially: “It 
1 seems better to have trout in our streams, even 
! though they are not equal to those formerly 
i found in them, if that be true, than to have 
fingerlings or none.” That expresses the founda¬ 
tion of our doctrine. 
; What we advocate is this: Owing to the 
j changes in the conditions, due to lumbering 
l operations, which cause drouths and freshets, 
i and a higher temperature of the water, in some 
i of our larger streams where the brook trout do 
not thrive and increase, and the planting of fon¬ 
tinalis has become a mere ■ waste of time and 
I money, it is better to plant brown trout to get 
j results, and, therefore, the propagation and plant- 
! ing of brown trout in such waters ought not 
be discontinued. It has been proved beyond a 
! doubt that the brown trout can better adapt it- 
1 self to these changes than fontinalis. Then why 
I not have brown trout, rather than no trout at 
i all? Especially (as we claim) when the brown 
| trout is equally as game, handsome and palatable 
i as fontinalis, and the killing of two or three 
large brown beauties will give the angler more 
! sport than the taking of a full creel of brook 
trout fingerlings. 
James Annin, Jr., consulting fish culturist, of 
' the Caledonia, (N. Y.) trout ponds, says: “1 
have handled them (brown trout) almost eigh¬ 
teen years and think they are the trout for some 
; of our larger and old trout brooks, where the 
water sometimes becomes too warm for the native 
brook trout,” which coincides with our views 
j exactly. 
No one, with an opinion worth considering, 
advocates planting brown trout in our small 
; mountain brooks where the native trout spawns. 
They would not thrive in such water and, owing 
• to their rapid growth. would soon leave or be- 
| come extinct. But in the larger, open streams, 
I subject to the changes mentioned above, where 
| the native trout are becoming scarce, Salmo fario 
; will thrive and continue to furnish excellent 
1 sport for the angler. Personally, I do not advocate 
| planting browm trout by wholesale in our Batten- 
FOREST AND STREAM 
kill River in Vermont. They found their way 
into this stream by accident and I cannot see 
wherein they have done any damage. I have 
simply given statistics to show' w T hat brown trout 
have done in these waters, but as the Battenkill 
has proved to be an excellent stream for native 
trout, I would not change at this time. There 
are other waters in this section, however, not 
suitable for l^rook trout, where brown trout 
would do well, and if we do not restock with the 
hardier species it will soon be “no trout.” Then, 
why discontinue propagating the hardier fish? 
Commissioner Bowers writes as follows: 
“The receipt is acknowledged of your letter 
of April 27 making inquiry as to the bureau’s 
reason for the discontinuance of the propagation 
of the brown trout. In response you are advised 
that this trout attains a larger growth than the 
native trout and is more cannibalistic. It was 
found that in streams where the brown trout had 
been introduced the brook trout either disap¬ 
peared or became very scarce, provided the brown 
trout obtained a foothold. The bureau has ex¬ 
perimented in past years with several foreign 
species, notably the brown trout, the Loch Leven 
trout, and the Scotch sea trout. In no instance 
have any of these fishes proved superior to the 
native trout of this country, and the bureau has, 
therefore, decided to confine its work to the 
propagation of the native species. In the natural 
trout waters of New England it is believed that 
no foreign species of trout should be introduced. 
Your report on the successful introduction of 
the brown trout in the Battenkill River is in¬ 
teresting, but it appears that the brook trout have 
not increased in that stream notwithstanding the 
very liberal plants annually made therein for a 
number of years. * * *. If the brown trout did 
not exist in the Battenkill it is believed that the 
fishing for native trout would improve.” 
Now, I have high regard and profound re¬ 
spect for the opinion of Commissioner Bowers 
and his assistants, but I certainly must dissent 
from what he says respecting our Battenkill 
River. I am sure he has been misinformed re¬ 
garding the matter and is not thoroughly ac¬ 
quainted with the conditions, or he would never 
have made such a statement. Here are the 
facts: Within the borders of Vermont the Bat¬ 
tenkill River has a length of over twenty miles, 
and is to-day rightly considered the finest trout 
stream in western New England. Brown trout 
escaped from C. F. Orvis’ pond at Manchester 
and entered the Battenkill some ten years ago. 
Since then there is no authentic record of a 
brown trout being seen or caught, save within 
a distance of two or three miles from where 
they entered. They inhabit the waters of the 
immediate vicinity of Manchester only, which 
proves my contention that brown trout do not 
wander much. Now how could they have af¬ 
82 l 
fected the conditions at East Dorset, Sunder¬ 
land, Arlington and West Arlington, many miles 
away ? 
As for the “very liberal plants annually made 
therein for a number of years,” I wish to state 
positively that, with the exception of the last 
year, little or no restocking of importance has 
ever been done in the Battenkill River, save at 
one point. And that point is Manchester, where 
the brown trout are found. For the past six 
years a t systematic effort has been made to re¬ 
stock near Manchester with most gratifying re¬ 
sults. To-day Manchester is the mecca of hun¬ 
dreds of anglers from all parts of the country 
and no one acquainted with the conditions will 
say that the supply of native trout has decreased 
in that vicinity. There was a time several years 
ago when the Battenkill River seemed to be about 
exhausted. What was the cause? The fish laws 
were not enforced. That is what nearly ruined 
the stream—not the brown trout. For the past 
three years the laws have been rigidly enforced. 
As for the result, I will quote from an article 
written by Clayton L. Kinsley, as reliable an 
authority as may be found in this section, in 
the Boston Herald. He says: 
“The enforcement of the six inch law has 
certainly improved the trout fishing in this coun¬ 
ty. In this immediate vicinity the fishing last 
season was the best in years, and in the northern 
section of the county the improvement was even 
more marked, the opening day catch on the Bat¬ 
tenkill River of over 500 pounds having never 
been equaled in the memory of the present 
generation.” 
This report is for last year. From this would 
it appear that the brook trout have not increased 
in that stream? Have the brown trout affected 
the increase of the native trout in the vicinity 
of Manchester? Herbert S. King, who' has had 
charge of most of the restocking with native 
trout at Manchester, says: 
“I am positive that the brown trout have not 
interfered with the brook trout one bit. The 
native trout are increasing at a great rate, and 
last year more brook trout were caught in this 
vicinity on the opening day than was ever 
known before. Everyone who went out got his 
share and I expect some got more than their 
share. In some places the brown trout cannot 
get in with the native trout and at others they 
seem to have decided to live together in peace 
as long as each keeps in his own waters.” 
From my own experience in my work I can 
subscribe to every word of the above as the 
positive facts, and, what is more, we know that 
the brown trout question, as demonstrated in 
the vicinity of Manchester, has become a condi¬ 
tion—not a theory—and will defy arguments to 
the contrary. Harry Chase, 
County Warden. 
