The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1888-12-06
FROGS NOT PRonTAeLE.
i've Thousand Dollars = Year cannos he
Made Raising Them.

In the Boston Journal some weeks
ago appeared a quotation from another
paper regarding a ''freg farm" in
which the extravaganza statement was
made that an income of 5000 could
be obtained from raising these inhabit-
ants of the marsh for sale. Fred
Mather, superintendent of the New
York Fish Commission and fishery edi-
tor of Forest and Stream. demolishes
this assertion by an interesting article
in the last issue of the Forest and
Stredsss. Therein he writes:
For the past four years this question
of frog culture has given me some
trouble in answering private letters
from would-be frog farmers, and in a
legacy left by the late Seth Green, who
wrote an article on it in the report of
the New York Fishery Commission for
1873. This was widely copied, and
each year some imaginative reporter
gives an account of q mythical frog
farm which has never existed. In 1875
this farm was located near Smithtown.
Long Island. and / went there and
found that there was no frog farm in
that vicinity, nor was there any man
living near the same place bearing the
name given. The next year the apo
cryphal farm was located near Phila-
| delphia, and ] had the same exper-
| fence. Since that time ] have only
wasted postage in the pursuit OF the
tabled industry.
| Mr., Green gave the results of two
years. experience in which he gathered
| frog spawn and Matched it, but lost his
| polywogs and abandoned frog culture,
1 but he encouraged others to try it by
saying the difficulties can be over
come by patience and perseverance.
| Yet he further said:
when they become frogs they live
on all kinds of insects. and the only
thing / can see to make success sure is
| to procure insects in large quantities.
enough to support great number OF
frogs" And here is where the imprac-
ticability of raising frogs lies.
1t is no trouble to gather large guam
titles of frog spawn and hatch millions
of tadpoles, nor to feed the latter on
meat and vegetation, for they eat both.
The enemies of the tadpole, or poly
wog, are numerous, and large frogs
will eat small ones. As an instance of
the latter fact, once took a dozen
large American bullfrogs to Professor
Moore, of the Derby Museum at Liver
pool and they quickly swallowed the
small European frogs that were in the
tank where he placed them Even II
it were imposS BIS - iced the frogs on
meat, which it is not, the batrachian is
of slow growth, and the balance would
be on the wrong side of the ledger
, when they were sent to market.
will travel to see the frog farmer
s'liVing on an income of $1,000" all
from his frogs. In my long exper-
fence as a pisciculturist the frog has
been under constant notice, andI have
tried to feed them on meat and mus.
! sells without success. My belief is thai
frog culture is a delusion, and that
such thing as frog pond does moi
exist, and unless some genius arises
who can find way to feed his frog;
3 on beetles, flies and other insects
: which, with some snails, constitute
their natural food, there will never be
a frog farm. The supply of frogs t.
New York markets comes mainly from
: | Canada and places of sparse popuia
I ton, where they are not extensivel!
eaten. Forty years ago Americans diC
not eat frogs, and every marsh in tn
+ country contained large ones. Nov
/ they are almost extinct near cities il
. the State of New York, and do no
: breed and grow rapidly enough to pa,
i to catch them. / think it probabl
' that the batrachians, like the reptiles
/ are of long life and slow growth, AM
: that man would get very tired wait
ing to see crop mature. Perhaps b
i might wait ten years to get large ones
d but never having raised frog to ma
a turity l can not say. The belief il
; their slow growth is based on the fac
d that many polywogs do not get thei
!. legs the season they are Matched, bu
g pass the winter in the tadpOle state
Al this points to slow maturity.