The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1875-01-14
The Supply of Fish for Food.

There is scarcely any part Of our wide
| empire where pleasant and profitable oc-
cupation may not be found by turning to
/ use the running streams, the bays of the
lakes; and The ponds which Nature has so
! laviShly provided for us. A few old boxes
will furnish and a week or two's labor will
arrange the means, md very tritling out
| lay will purchase the necessary material.
Care and attention are the chief necessa-
ries capital is scarcely any advantage IN
| this business We speak of fish culture,
as a rapidly developing industry which is
capable of turning rivers into more pros
porous sources of wealth than are the fields
which give us their annual products of
grain and vegetables. .
Few persons have any idea of the extent
| to which fish may be raised from spawn.
| In the ocean the enemies of the small fish
are, fortunately, numerous; for if the hun
dreds of thousands of eggs in the roe of
each herring and cod came to maturity,
the seas would in time became impossible.
But this fecundity is all in favor OF the fish
cultivatOr. In box of few inches Ca
pacity he can convey his thousands of sal
mon, trout, or shad to his own home, and
let them hatch in simple and easily con-
structed apparatus, turning them out to
| furnish both sport and food.
Professor Baird, in his report on this n
tercsting and important subject just issued,
shows the importance of distinguishing
between the anadremous or up-running
fish, who spend part of their life in the
ocean and part in the rivers, and the eX-
elusively fresh water fish, such as the
brook trout, the lake trout, the land-lOcked
salmon, the white fish, black bass, and the
| like. In regard to the latter, he sho y S
that their culture must always be limited
by the narrow extent of their feeding
grounds so that if a river which has been
deprived of these fish be supplied with
them, they will, after time, destroy the
natural sources of food and begin to prey
upon one another, thus keeping up the
balance of life which is always found in
waters untouched by men. Thus the
supply of fish to given river or lake will
always be limited by the relation of sub
sistance to numbers In their own waters.
Accordingly the effort to introduce brook
| trout or black bass into certain streams
can never succeed beyond a given point.
| When the different forms of life are bal
anced in that particular stream, there will
be no surplus reproduction.
Whatever Interfercs with the spawning
of a fish destroys millions of offspring.
! Accordingly the only thing necessary in our
rivers, TO preserve the enormous harvest
of fish which the ocean offers to us, is not
to interrupt the course of the fish towards
their spawning grounds, and not to break
up the breeding places. With this object
III view, the different States are renewing
the obstacles in the rivers which prevented
the progress of the up-running fish, and
are restocking rivers which were stripped
of such fish. One of the most remarkable
experiments is that made in restocking the
Connecticut River with shad. In the
spring of 1861, 100000 eggs were arti-
ficially fortified in that river. and in 1872
the immense number of 100000. The
harve, of shad in the Connecticut has in
creased enormously, and many fishing
stations which had been abandoned have
been re-established. A single haul is
mentioned of $500 shad, which is the
greatest that has ever been known; and
last year these delicious fish were more
numerous and cheaper than they have
ever been known before along that river.
In New York. in 1870, about 2, 100000
young shad were introduced into the Hud-
son. and this number has been increased
every wear since. The effects of even this
moderate supply began ts be manifested
during the last spring. Great efforts are