Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-10-14
CARP
Third Paper by Mr.. Iavis on the Raising
of Carp

through. / shall proceed. We had arrived
in this series of sketches for the benefit OF
the REcoRD-U UNION readers at the point
where the little beauties carp had been
Matched. They cone forth supplied by
nature with little bag of food attached
to the mouth, which is sufficient tc nourish
and sustain them about one week. By the
time the fish has consumed all the yolk las
culturists call it, it is able TO take other
food, which it obtains from the scum of
| the water and otherwise. In few days
they will take food prepared for them,
such as the curd of sour milk, meal, mid
dlings, bran, boiled cabbage and potatoes,
melons and grain of all kinds, or anything
that pig will eat 1t is useless to emu
merate. Suffice it to say that they will
eat anything in the vegetable line, even
the excrement of the domestic animals. If
the ponds are rich in natural food they
viii do moderately well with but little or
no attention but experience teaches US
that the better the care and attention of
the domestic animal, the better the devel.
opment and the greater the percentage
gained. Even so with the carp. We
also learn from experience that thsre
ID vast difference in stock of the
same species. For instance, we obtain
nearly double the amount of beef from the
same amount of food given to good short
horn, that I'VE do from q common scrub.
Or, for another instance, take scrub pig,
and good China, and give them the same
care and attention, and the scrub will re.
main a poor little knotty thing, almost
disgusting to look at. willie the China is
always fat, and ever fit for the oven. There
is even greater difference in fish, the
carp having the ascendancy: while it con-
sumes only (you may say refuse) vegetable
matter, the trout requires this to be
transformed into animal matter before con-
sidering it food at all mote the difference.
Then, again,
THE CARP ARE NOT CANNIBALs,
And therefore all sizes can be kept and
reared in the same pond, which is an item
OF great importance and renders them pref.
cradle to all other good fish. Then, again,
consider the rapidity of their growth, and
the enormous size to which they attain.
The first year they gain in length from
three to six inches, the second from six to
ten inches, and the third from ten to
twenty inches, and so on until they obtain
their full growth. Mir. Hessell says they
increase in length only up to a certain age,
but that their circumference will increase
up to their thirty fifth year. Says he: 81
have seen carp in Southern Europe that
weighed thirty and forty pounds and more,
and measuring three and half feet in
length by two and three fourths feet in
circumference. Another account gives
the weight of some as ranging from fifty
to sixty pounds each, and a French en-
gineer killed carp in the Danube that
weighed sixty-fve pounds, and the
scales of which measured two and a
half inches in diameter. There were two
taken from the ponds of the Duke of Olden-
burg that weighed AZ and % pounds, they
being only 10 years of age. The chronicle
OF the monastries of Molk gives the weight
OF one at IS pounds, and still another &C.
count places the weight of q carp at 90
pounds. However, they do not often ex-
coed twenty pounds in weight and four
feet in length but Jovinus mentions son g
that were caught in Lake Como, in Italy,
that weighed 200 pounds each, and others
have been taken from the Dniester FIVE f, e.
In length. i'll now return to and speak of
OUR HOME GROWTH
But before proceeding further I wish TO
correct mistake that mas crept into print,
namely, that carp acquire their growth in
three years, which is not the case by thirty
two years, by the quotations from Hessell,
and, to speak personally, my 3-year old fish
were always from ten to sixteen inches in
length, while my eight. year-old fish are
still growing. When but six years old
they measured thirty.two inches in length
and fourteen and bali inches IN c;rcumfer-
ence. But to consider the Homegrown Of
some Others. | let Mr.. Billings have two
small tsh, which were Lot ra5.e tn n three
or four inches in length, and one year after
he informed me that theY then weighed
i've pounds. Mr.. Charle5 Harris, of Hills
Ferry, Cal, writes me rs follows:
Last winter | wsntet soma bree ling
carp, but thought the price asked by some
more than l coald stand although l
bought seventy five carp, sail to be two
years of age, and that weighed less
than one pound each. Some of them
died in being transported. / opened some
of them, and found both sexes full of
spawn. For fourteen miles of the way
they were very badly shaken up, and it
may be the spawn were killed, as / can
see no little ones. My stock fish have
grown from three. quarters and one pound
to four and six pounds in weight. Now,
will you please give me your opinion, and
tell me what you think was the cause of
my carp not spawning? Also give me the
lowest price for 500 of your carp fry"
might go on and give many more state
ments. but presume these are enough to
show the reader what can be dore. We need
no5 expect all of our fish to make such
gisnts, as those named are exceptional
specimens still these facts are encouraging
illustrations, showing what is possible for
certain specimens to arrive at under favor.
able circumstances.
THE CARP LIVES
To very advanced age. The ponds ia the
garden of Emanuel College, Cambridge.
| contained carp that had been an inhabit.
ant of that pond for more than seventy
years and Gessner has mentioned an in
stance of one living to be 100 years old.
Mr.. Hessell says that there are specimens
to be found in Austria l40 years old and
Professor Baird says he has evidence of
them living to be 200 years of age. They
are also very tenacious Of life, and will live
for considerable time out of water. |
have shipped them p miles in wet grass
and they were still alive. George Finley,
Of Pittsburg, Pa, writes me that seven
carp six inches long lived six days in four
gallons of water, with large amount of
fern therein, and the fish were as well
when taken out as when put in. l have
shipped them all over this Western coast,
from Idaho on the north to Mexico on the
| south, with less than three per cent. loss.
To raise these fish successfully for market
we want pond for each year we wish to
keep the fish. For instance, we want first a
| hatchiug pond; here we keep the breeding
fish, and in the fall we want to take out all
the young fab and transfer them to another
pond by themselves, and there let them
remain until we are ready to put them into
the market. But in order to keep them
from increasing too rapidly, you will want
a few cannibals, but smaller fish, in the
same pond with them to eat up "their
spawn, and fer this l presume the pike is
the best, but the trout will answer. We
want to keep each years Matching il
separate ponds, until the first is emptied,
i