Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-02-08
A Goldfish Factory.

where else has it been 80 practically
and successfully carried out. This
very year the Connecticut river, which
was barren of salmon for three-quarters
of century, has yielded good crop
Of the finest of these fish, and o new
source of industry and profit has been
turned over to New England fisher
men. It seems almost providential
that in country where there has been
q reckless waste of fish we should have
almost originated the process Of re-.
stocking our depleted waters. To-day,
France, Germany, Holland, and the
antipodes have been calling on us for
the eggs of our fish, so that their own
streams might be made fruitful. This
recognition Of the rapid strides we
have made in this new science has been
everywhere fairly acknowledged, save.
perhaps, in England. In British
waters, the restocking of their rivers
with salmon, commencing with the
eggs, has been attempted only on the
very smallest scale. What they have
done, and perhaps done better than
any other country, is to preserve their
streams in passing just, thoa~h rigor-
Gus, laws limiting the period Of catch.
Private enterprise in trout CT lure,
commencing ab initi0, Matching out lie
egg and putting the fish from the nur-
sery into the water, seems to have been
but comparatively untried in Great
Britain. Though aquaria abound in
England, and possibly the soundest
theories have been deduced from the
study of fish, in good, practical, useful
work they may be said to have done
practically nothing. The want of
acknowledgment on the part of Eng
lish ichthyologists, in giving us in
America credit for our labors, is, of
course, of little consequence, since the
practical proof of its recognition is
found in the fact, before mentioned,
that heavy drafts are being made on
us by Europe, not only for our eggs,
but for the whole American literature
treating on the subject. During the
last fifteen years, thanks to an impetus
derived from the Smithsonian institu-
ton, and the direction given to the
minds of students in natural history
by the present secretary of tho Smith
sonian, h-culture has been largely
developed in the United States.
At the present moment one OF the
most interesting experiments ever
made in fish-oulture is now being tried,
and with fair chances of success, and
that is the Matching of cod. In the
brief space OF a newspaper article it
is hardly possible to detail the innu-
merable careful studies of q fish and
its surroundings which naturalists
made before the practical work of fish
culture was commenced. But once
these facts established, the principles
on which fish-culture rests are of the
simplest character. In former times
fish were believed to be migratory.
Like birds, it was supposed that fish
sought in winter warmer seas, and in
summer returned, first visiting the
rivers nearer to their winter quarters,
and then proceeding further and fur
Their northward. This is not the fact.
Fish are now believed to be more or
less local in their character. The shad
of the Hudson, say, born above
Albany, do go down to the sea in their
proper time, stay there, never remain
very distant from the mouth of the
river, grow large and fa:ten, but when
the period comes when they must re-
produce their kind they do not ascend
the Delaware or the Connecticut river,
but return only to the Hudson, mount
that stream, and endeavor to deposit
their eggs, and to have them fructified,
in the precise spot, above Albany,
where they were born themselves, three
or four years before. The fish COM
then, of New York do not
work for the benefit of Pennsylvania.
Just as by its instinct head of sheep
enter masters pasture, and not his
SO do fish return to their
own river. In sea-fish, the rule, it is
believed, is the same. OF course, the
extent of range of the adult ssa-fish is
much greater. Miles of sea.coast may
be traversed by the fish when seeking
for food but, reasoning by analogy,
it is quite evident that, when the
period of production is about to take
place, the sea-fsh will seek the spawn
ing-bed where its first instincts of life
were developed.
Now human ingenuity in this period
Of active thought, at least in America,
does not brook thwarting. Many years
ago, when king of Sicily thought to
subject industry, by placing the heavi-
est of export duties on sulphur, so as
to make all the world dependent on him
for the manufacture of sulphuric acid,
men set about making the acid from
natural sulphurets, found in abundance
in oil countries. In the United States
we have had an ugly dispute with Great
Britain and the provinces in regard to
the fishery interests, and have paid. in
o rather grumbling way, round sum
of money for past fishery privilege.
The question is: Can we make our
selves independent, in o certain meas.
ure, of the fisheries in provincial wa.
ters, by producing our own sea-fish on
our own coasts? The experiment of
artificially Matching the cod is now 60
ing on at Gloucester, under the man.
agement of the United States fish COM
missioner. In certain respects, the
procuring of the eggs Of the shad pre-
sented more difficult task, from the
fact Of the tenderness of the shad and
its inability to resist handling without
dying. But then the shad could be
caught in calm, inland summer water,
while the cod would require to have