The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1868-12-28
germs $500 per- anmuns, d. adrance.
Breeding of Fish.

The State of Maine probably affords as ma
ny facilities for the breeding of fish as any
State in the Union The climate and waters
of our State are admirably fitted for trout and
salmon. Time has been when our rivers,
brooks, lakes and ponds were teeming with
these beautiful and valuable creatures. Many
years ago the salmon disported in the waters
OF the Androscoggin, and the speckled trout
1oS'd be killed in great abundance from lake
oi"O"sag to Brunswick. What scenes were
once Witnessed at the foot of Lewiston Falls
More thah a generation ago Uncle Hackett"
1--WE believe That was his name,) told us that
the salmon were so numerous in the spring
after the ice had gone from the river. that he
could almost walk over on their backs as a
bridge. The old gentleman said it was great
sport to see these noble tenants of the water
shooting about among the foam at the foot of
the Falls and often leaping from one spot TO
another up the swiftly running streams as
they came pouring over their rocky beds in
to the eddies below. 1t must have been an
exciting scene. We have taken with the hook
many splendid trout from these foaming
waters in years gone by. But now their
places are filed with big, squirming eels, as
the editor of the Journal very well knows,
through whose kindness and generosity
we had occular demonstration of the fact
but whether he "bobbed" for them or not,
we have no means of knowing. We confess
it is a sport not exactly suited to our taste.
Such sport we cannot dignity as angling, how
ever high the estimation in which others NAV
hold it.
Here and now we are reminded of an in
cident which occurred some thirty years ago.
We were riding over the hills in Poland with
the lamented Deblois who was a most scien-
tific angler, and whose sense of propriety
would at any time be shocked if one happen
ed to call fishing rod ga pole" or a collec-
tion of water a pond" instead of a lake. We
were upon elevated ground and in sight of
the Middle Range Pond" when Deblois saw
a man standing near his house. Looking
away towards this beautiful sheet of water,
he asked the man, if there were not good ans-
ling n yonder lake or in the stl cams flowing
into it. The gentleman considered a she ort
time before answering, and then said-and
said it innocently too. eyes, this is the sea-
son when suckers run and great many are
speared every night"
"Drive on" said Deblois, in an a2itated
voice.. Don't that fellow know any better
than to talk to me about stabbing suckers!
Why he's under witted, foolw The shock
was so great to the nerves of our companion
that be didn't get rid of il until we arrived at
Paris. He kept harping upon the mans an
swer all the way. And we suppose the SEN
sibility of good Old Isaac Walton might have
been shocked in the same way, and yet we
believe his irritability would have been of
milder form.
But to the subject in hand. The breeding
OF fish in our State may be made a very prof
liable business as well as a source of much
pleasure to the people, Thousands of our
farmers have great advantages by the lay of
their lands, by the brooks and springs for the
making of fish-ponds in which they can breed
trout for their own tables and some for the
market. We believe France is ahead of all
other nations in the artificial breeding of fish.
ningue is great enterprise. The rivers OF
France are not only restocked through this
agency, but it has annually distributed for
fifteen years to other countries 100000 of
fish eggs at a cost to the purchasers of less
than two mills per egg, transportation includ-
ed. But we need not go to France TO learn
lessons in artificial fish culture. In Num-
ford, N. Y. Mr.. Green has "manufactory Of
fish" where he has in his ponds over 100000
trout, 10000 of which are full grown In ad-
dition to this he had hatching-boxes in which
he annually deposits 800 600 eggs, ninety-fve
per cent. of which he matches or sells to 9TH
ers to hatch to maturity. This same gentle
man not long ago, at his own expense hatch
ed and deposited 100000 OF shad in a single
New England river TIE truth is Maine
must wake up to this business and not suffer
all her noble streams and lakes to come to
ed with trout, salmon and black bass. The
latter is even more of game fish than the
trout, and affords fine sport for the angler.
The Cold Spring trout mandatory at
Charlestown, Mass. has recently received two
hundred and fifty thousand salmen eggs in
good order, from the Miramichi breeding works
New Brunswick. These eggs were packed
in baskets of wet moss and transported one
hundred and fifty miles on sleds, three hun
dred and twenty by rail and two hundred
and eighty by water. They were of course
carefully protected from the cold and are sut-
ficiently advance to be Matched in January
The Canadian Government showed little of
the John Bull spirit, but it finally yielded, in
condition that one half of the ova taken
should be left to hatch at Miramichi, for the
benefit of the crown"
AGRICoLA.