The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-06-30
STOCKING OF STREAMS.
National Fish Commission Busy-The
 Argument foI. and Against Carn

National Fish Commission Busy-The Argument for and Against Carp.
 The officials of the United States Fish commission are now in the first of their busy season. Shad for the Poto-
 mac,. whitefish for the lakes, salmon for the Columbia, and carp for the Georgia streams are being matched and distrib- uted about over the country in the sci entifically constructed cars for the
 commission. Letters by the wagon load are coming in from all paris of the country, from persons asking ques- tions or applying for fish, so that the members of the fish commission have very little spare time on their hands. And much of this correspondence is of a freakish nature. we have a regular printed form" {" said MT. J. W. Titcomb, in charge of the division of fish culture, containing number of questions, which we send out to those who apply for fish, and which they are required to fill out and return to us before we send them the fish they ask for. The questions in these forms relate to the nature of the waters which the applicant is resirous of stocking, Such questions are highly important and necessary, and are the means of preventing a vast deal of
 waste in time and labor and fish. will give you practical demonstration of what I mean. Here is a farmer who has made application for a number of the young of the rainbow and brook trout, and who has filled out his form in far better style than is usually the case. He replies to the questions as to the size and character of the body of water he desires to stock with trout,
 and, in answer to the question as to whether there are any fish already iii this body of water and, if so, what spe-' cies, states that the body of water is
 full Of black bass. Now, bass and
 pickerel are perhaps the worst ene-
 mics the brook and rainbow trout have
 to consend with, preying upon the
 young of the latter varieties; so that if we were to send him the fish he asks
 for the government would be simply
 put to | the expense of paying for a
 hearty meal for stream full of vora-
 cious bass. Thus it is that by these.
 questions we are able to direct the ap-
 plicants in making a choice of fish best
 adapted to the waters they intend to
 stock and avoid doing work for noth-.
 ing, sf ,e., .> i. .., ...,.,.@ ..@rr ~s%
 However, that is not what I started
 to tell you about. When we first issued
 these printed application forms, one of
 the questions they contained was
 What is the area of the body of water
 you wish to stock with ish?' We soon
 discovered, by the absurd and utterly
 meaningless answers we received. that
 at least two-thirds of our applicants did
 not know what the word area meant.
 Therefore, we made two questions out
 of this one, and, instead of the old
 query, it reads thus: How long is the
 pond, lake, etc, which you wish to
 stock?. How wide is it?'} Any one
 would have imagined that this was
 plain enough, but the trouble with the
 average illiterate person is that, when
 he undertakes to make out an applica- tion of this sort he thinks he must be
 as ambiguous as possible and employ a
 lot of big words which he is not accus-
 toned to using. Thus is happens that
 for all the questions on these forms are
 as plain as we can make them, 1t is sel-
 dom that one is returned filled out in
 satisfactory manner. Here is a fair
 specimen of what mean. In this form
 the applicant in reply to the question,
 How long is the pond, etc, says ob- I long,, and to the other Guery? How wide is it?' he makes answer about three acres.' ''As for the letters we receive, as-
 sure you some of them are gems. Here is one from man out in Ken lucky, who writes thating that, near his place, there is large pond. teeming , with bass and croppie but that, despite his efforts, they will not bite. What bait he asks, can use to induce these fish to bite?' I wrote back, to the man in charge of our station, at that point,
 asking him if he know of any bait other than that of the bottled kind so popular in Kentucky which this man could use. Here is another missive containing ,, twenty-four questions. Following are some Of them: What does a trout do with himself in winter? Could the
 trout be prevented from breeding, and if so would they not grow faster than if allowed to breed? How long will it take the largest fish the government will furnish to grow to the weight of a pound?'
 ''In our work of stocking the country
 -