OCTOBER, 1917 
FOREST AND STREAM 
469 
and dip nets in catching the salmon, the 
majority of which were dried and smoked 
for winter use. 
A favorite preparation of the Indians 
who resorted to the river was pemmican. 
This was the meat of the salmon cleaned 
of the bones, pounded up fine, and then 
packed in hempen sacks of home manufac¬ 
ture. A sack of pemmican weighed from 
80 to go pounds and was worth in barter 
as much as an ordinary horse. 
T HE artificial culture of salmon on the 
Pacific coast has developed into a 
large and constantly expanding indus¬ 
try. The United States Bureau of Fish¬ 
eries operates a number of large and well- 
equipped hatcheries, while the State gov¬ 
ernments of California, Oregon, and Wash¬ 
ington, the Dominion of Canada, and the 
Province of British Columbia, and certain 
The man on the left is emptying the 
eggs into the spawning pan 
private companies have built and maintain 
a large number of hatcheries, some of these 
being among the largest in the world. 
Artificial propagation of salmon was 
deemed a necessary measure to provide 
against the decrease and gradual extinc¬ 
tion of a fish which is probably the great¬ 
est food fish in the world. Its flesh is 
canned, smoked and dried and used in 
nearly every part of the world. Although 
the amazing number of salmon which re¬ 
turn to their native waters to spawn would 
seem to a casual observer to be so great 
that extinction in the near future would 
be impossible, one has but to remember the 
fate of the once numerous passenger 
pigeon to be glad that the government has 
in this case taken preventive measures in 
ample time. 
The eggs used for artificial propagation 
are obtained from salmon taken on their 
way upstream to the natural spawning 
grounds. In order to arrest the ascent of 
the fish a rack is built across the stream. 
A number of methods have been em¬ 
ployed for taking the fish as they are 
grouped below the rack and seeking for an 
opening, but the most practicable has been 
found to be by means of drag or haul 
seines swept across the area just below the 
rack. When the pocket or bunt is brought 
close to shore the workmen pick out the 
ripe fish and turn the others back to remain 
until they reach this stage. 
The accompanying photographs -are dis¬ 
played chronologically from left to right. 
The first photo shows one of the two sets 
of racks placed across a river to stop the 
salmon. They can pass the first set through 
V-shaped openings, but cannot get back. At 
this particular time, however, the instinct 
of the fish is to go only upstream, and 
when reaching the rack, they nose along it 
and are only too eager to follow each other 
like so many sheep through any discovered 
opening. The second set of racks is about 
a quarter of a mile farther up the river, 
and offers no exit, the space between con¬ 
stituting the spawning ground. 
When “ripe” the salmon are seined and 
taken alive to the nearby hatchery, as 
shown in the second picture. 
The males and females are separated at 
the hatchery, the females being killed by a 
blow on the head and laid out as shown in 
the third photograph. 
The female is ripped open soon after be¬ 
ing killed. In the picture at the top of the 
opposite page, the man at the left is shown 
emptying the eggs into one of the spawn¬ 
ing pans; the other man is holding a live 
male and fertilizing the eggs (note the 
small white stream). While the male is 
afterwards turned loose, it dies within two 
or three days. 
The largest photo shows Indians taking 
away the spawned-out carcasses of the fish. 
They smoke and use them as part of their 
food supply. 
T HE time which it takes a salmon 
egg to hatch varies according to the 
temperature of the water. The aver¬ 
age time from the fertilization of the egg 
until it hatches varjes from 60 to 90 days. 
The usual period for the liberation of the 
salmon fry is the time when what is 
known as the eggsack is absorbed. 
This eggsack is nature’s food supply, 
and is gradually absorbed into and be¬ 
comes the stomach of the salmon. It is 
generally from 30 to 60 days from the 
time the fish is hatched to the time this 
absorption has taken place, and until a 
few years ago, the rule in the Fisheries 
Department was to liberate the fry at this 
time. However, during the last few years, 
the practice of feeding the young fry for 
several months instead of immediately 
turning them loose has been introduced 
and gradually enlarged until today, at the 
majority of the hatcheries, a goodly por¬ 
tion of the output is fed for a time before 
being liberated, and on the theory that 
older and larger fish are much more capa¬ 
ble of protecting themselves from their 
natural enemies than the younger fry. A 
portion of the bodies of the parent salmon 
is preserved in a mild salt solution and, 
later on, the flesh is freshened again, 
ground very fine and fed to the offspring. 
In other words, the young fish are literally 
fed the bodies of their fathers and mothers. 
W HEN salmon spawn naturally, the 
fish make their way up the fresh 
water streams to gravel beds where 
the female scoops out a round hole in the 
gravel in which she deposits her eggs. The 
eggs are immediately fertilized by the male 
swimming alongside the hole, after which 
he covers the eggs with gravel to prevent 
the trout and other fish, which follow the 
salmon upstream, from devouring them. 
Nature allows the parents to survive for 
two or three days during which time they 
hover over the spot where the female has 
deposited her eggs; then they gradually 
weaken, float down stream a short distance 
and die. But the tragedy remains whether 
spawning be natural or artificial. 
However, the human interest feature of 
the whole story is found in the fact that 
salmon are monogamous—that is, they 
pair off and make the long trip upstream 
together; and yet this is not taken into 
consideration in the final scene of this 
dramatic tragedy of the fish world. 
Indians busily engaged taking away the spawned out carcasses of the fish. They 
smoke and use them as part of their food supply 
