Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1890-10-11
LEE ON a FARM.
There h Profit In Raising Fish and Frog
for Market.

II has not been many years sincs
water farming was added to the posi-.
bilities OF agriculture" In Indiana.
1t began as a diversion. II has become
o business. Enough time has now
elapsed to demonstrate that water
farming may be made practicable and
profitable-at least as profitable as
some other rural occupation, and more
enticing than the ordinary life of an
agriculturist. As much money can be
made of an acre OF water as of an
acre Of land, including well located
fish and frog ponds on the one hand
and ordinary farming on the other.
One Of the pioneers in water farming
10 Indiana is MI. Joseph Manlove. oil
Milton. Seven years ago he bought q
small piece of low land lying between
the White Water canal and White
Water (river). He determined to food
the low land and to add to his posses
sions the adjoining high land for park
purposes. His place now includes
fourteen acres of water and twenty-one
of land. His business is largely with
the water and only incidentally with
the dry land. His first purpose was to
establish a carp pond, from which the
fish market might be supplied. This
was accomplished In two years With
comparative ease. Now he has prac-
tically an unlimited quantity of this
variety of fish. However, the public
taste also calls for bass, and Manlove
determined to add this variety to his
supply. His lake is now stocked with
a vast supply of black bass. They
have grown finely, aud next year bass
fishing will be put on the market"
Bass promise so much better than carp
that Farmer" Manlove uses his young
carp as food for his bass.
Still another department" has been
added to the farm" this season-frogs.
Four acres of shallow water, we'll
grown in flags, were set apart as q
breeding place for frogs. They breed
and grow rapidly. Four thousand
tadpoles were put in this breeding pen
early in the spring. Many of them are
now of a marketable size. Next season
they will be giauts-big ten-inch long
cultivated" bullfrogs, worth $3.50
and s3 q dozen-not the little marsh
frog. but the big fellows with Herr
Fischer voices. In catching them for
market a light at night is used. They
stare at the light, and can be caught
and handled with ease in its glare. In
catching large quantities of carp the
lake Is drained off. In winter the
marketable fish are kept in small
ponds.
1t is interesting to observe the water
farmer at his work. He can use 0
horse, but he needs neither plow,
planter nor reaper. Suppose he has
gone out to feed. He has with him
middlings or some other grain. He
goes to the breeding pond, sounds a
gong or blows a whistle, and thousands
of frogs come hopping from their
shelter. They eat the food r%avenously
and become so tame that the farmer
handles them as a woman does her pet
chickens. The same food is just the
thing for young aud old carp. Fish
and frogs take to grain and grain
products" said Mr.. Manlove, like a
boy takes TO apple dumping. Part of
the season it is not necessary TO feed
my stock at all. The water-grass seeds
make the finest of food for the fish, and
at this time of the year | rarely pre-
pare a fish for the table that | do not
find him filled with grass seeds
IRdidndp0its NeLDS.