The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-14 00:00:00

number of entries ; but the Western States are by
no means unrepresented, and we expect to see
the superabundant wealth of the great Western
prairies and mines and manufactories, indicated
by thousands of articles of growth and manufac-
ture, occupying an honourable place among the
treasures of the world which will be congregated
next year at Paris. Yes, the West—the great,
mighty, teeming West—that feeds the American
nation, and could feed the world, that welcomes to
its broad and fertile bosom the surplus population
of the globe, that enfolds in its vast expanse of
field and forest, in its mines of coal and lead and
copper and silver and gold, in its mighty rivers,
its great lakes, its cities that grow up as it were in
a day, that glorious inheritance that shall make the
United States within a century more populous and
more prosperous than the whole of Europe—let the
West display her young, lusty, vigorous and intel-
ligent face to the curious millions who will gather
at the Paris Exposition. Remembering that Peace
also has its victories, let the American people, now
that they have achieved those victories in war
which have covered them with imperishable honour,
seek for those Peaceful Victories which are not
won by the sword, but by the invincible. might
of industry, and intelligence, and a high cisil isatton.

Pisciculture in Oxfordshire.

• -.4,,-

(From Land and Water.)
Some years ago the arrival of a number of very
tiny trout,which, in piscicultural language, had just
absorbed the umbilical vesicle, or, according to the
untutored fish-hatoher, had just consumed their
jelly-bags, and had been hatched in London under
the parental care of Frank Buckland, gave the
science of pisciculture a footing on the banks of a
muddy river in this county. Cockney fish though
they were, they bore their journey well, and com-
fortably harboured in a large pickle-bottle, were
refreshed with change of water at the different
stations on the Great Western. Not that the
prospect before them was encouraging, for they
were bound to an inhospitable country, and the
river and lakes they were intended to colonise
seemed anything but fit waters for their reception.
Through the meadows rolled the sluggish river over
a muddy bottom, telling not of trout, but of coarse
vulgar fish, though here and there, on the shallows
an odd trout would now and then re ward the very
patient fisherman. Pike, perch, eels, and great
clumsy chub, tenanted the deep holes. The lakes
were beautifully clear, and were fed by numerous
springs, while a strong stream ran from one to
another, and so on to the river. The mud, however,
was deep, and pike and perch held undisputed
sway. By fencing off parts off the stream between
the lakes, as nurseries for the young trout, hopes
were entertained of being able to rear them up to
such a size and age as would ensure them, when
turned out in the lake and river, against the attacks
of perch and small pike. The little Lon-
doners were forthwith placed in one of those
asylums, and were fed with pounded liver and
biscuit. All appeared to go well with them till
the rats, which swarm in the neighbourhood, at-
tracted either by the waste particles of food or by
the fish, tunnelled under the banks, made holes
round the posts which held the fence of perforated
zinc, and away went the little trout into the
main stream or into the lakes, and probably not one
escaped the open mouths that were ready to swal-
low them up. The following season an attempt was
made to hatch about 1,000 trout ova in two long
wooden boxes placed in the same stream. A small
bank of stones and gravel, up-stream of each box,
stood by way of apology for a filter; perforated
zinc at either end of the box kept enemies out, while
the lid acted as a protection above, and sheltered the
ova from the glare of the light. In spite of the
immense accumulation of dirt and sediment, the
hatching out was successful, but though as gentle.a
current as possible was made to flow through the
boxes, the poor little fish, clogged and helpless with
their hugh vesicles, got fixed in the holes of the
zinc, and there ended their brief existence. Between
100 and 200 lived to absorb the umbilical bag, and
instantly, on emerging into activity, were cast loose
into the stream, there to take their chance, and run
the gauntlet of perch and pike, kingfisher and dab-
chick, as the rats had willed that their London
cousins should do before them.

Meanwhile an indoor apparatus was being pre-
pared, and bricks and mortar were fast raising up a
small house to contain it. The close of 1863 found
the establishment complete in every respect. Built
against the embankment, at the foot of one of the
lakes, where there was a steep fall, the roof of the
house was below the level of the surface of the lake.
A shallow well, sunk a few feet from the waterside,
received the water which found its way through the
intervening gravel bed, thus acting as a filter, and
from thence a leaden pips supplied the building.
Entering close under the roof, the mouth of the pipe
was directly over a filter barrel, about as high as a
nine gallon cask, but more capacious. A horse hair
sieve at the top, and layers of charcoal, sand, fine
and coarse gravel, were quite enough, one would have
imagined, to guard against the inroads of all hostile
matter, animal as wel as vegetable, or sediment of
any kind. Ready filled for use a spare filter barrel
was at hand, in case of anything going wrong through
foulness or choking. Fifteen slate troughs, on Mr.
Ponder's principle, ranged the length of the house,
and, thanks to that gentleman's kindness and cour-
tesy, they were made precisely to his pattern. • Care-
fully cleaned and scalded was the gravel, bright and
clear it glistened in the troughs, and pure and limped
ran the filtered water over it, and the star of fish-
culture was in the ascendent. By the end of January,
1864, eleven thousand ova had been collected, nearly
half of which were of the great lake trout, and the
rest of common trout and char. Remarkably healthy
and sound they were, and for a time everything went
well, but soon a curious scum made its appearance in
the troughs, and rust-coloured matter adhered to
the zinc guards at the outlets. Day by day the
nuisance grew worse, but still the water flowed tran-
sparent as crystal, and the ova did not suffer. The
presence of iron, and in no small quantity, in the
water, was no longer to be doubted, but whence and
how could it get there ? The lake above was free
from it, and no iron-water spring was known to be
in the immediate vicinity. Various, but futile at-
tempts were made to cleanse the troughs. The scum
was continually skimmed off, a stronger stream was
turned on, and the paint-brush vainly essayed to
relieve the ova of their noxious integument. Though
the iron had apparently no effect upon the ova, it
told very differently when the hatching commenced.
The little fish just bursting into life were quite
overcome by it ; numbers at the first glance of the
outer world gave up the struggle, and the troughs
were soon full of defunct victims of an iron despo-
tism. At this crisis, half a dozen small earthenware
troughs were hastily rigged out, a supply of water
was obtained from the reservoir tanks on the roof of
the mansion house, and all that could be saved,
hatched, hatching, and about to hatch, were removed
from the p. iscicultural house to a temporary structure
on the lawn.

Out of eleven thousand ova origanally deposited in
the troughs, only five thousand were rescued from
the poisoned gravel beds ; and many of these were
weak and sickly, and about three thousand five hun-
dred lived to absorb the umbilicle visicle and shift
for themselves. In thehurry and confusion of moving
them from what appeared to be certain death, great
lake trout, common trout, and char had all got
mixed up together, and many a lake trout was to
be seen swimming about with the tail of a wretched
char protruding from his mouth. A nursery in the
stream, carefully fenced against all enemies, and
supposed to be rat proof, again received the rising
hopes of the piscicultural family; but one old enemy
was not to be baffled, and a fat, complacent, self-
satisfied old rat, who had just dined off the young
trout, was ever to be seen sitting on the top of some
slate, tile, or stone, placed as a hide, or shelter, for
the fish, looking exactly like some old gentleman at
Greenwich under very similar circumstances. With
the exception of a very few hundreds turned into the
river, and one or two small streams in the neigh-
bourhopd, the results of the fish hatching of 1864
had, like their predecessors, the rats to thank for an
early introduction to a host of enemies in the open
water. Steps were taken to ascertain the source
from whence the iron made its way into the hatch- 11
ing house, and iron-stone, in considerable quantities,
was found in the embankment through which the
water filtered into the well, and the masonry of the