The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-11-12


 CT rivers of the State, and to the lakes, which abound throughout the prairie. There is not a large city in the State, but has one or more good fish lakes near it, and these are kept stocked by the commission.
 l In addition the commission obtains from the government hatchery at Put inlay forty or fifty million fertile walleyed pike-or pike e-perch-eggs, which are matched at Meredosia, re- tained there until the sacs are absorb ed, and then distributed in government fish cars all over the state. Extensive as this work seems it is not expensive, the total appropriation, including the up-keep of the boat, running consider ably less than $20,OoO year.
 The fish in the Illinois are of no less than eighty varieties, of which these are chief: Large e-mouthed black bass, two sorts of croppies, sunfsh, about twelve sorts; catfish, seven sorts; carp, three sorts (mirror, scale and leather); and buffalo, four sorts Half of them all are carp, and a third are buffalo and catfish. These coarser sorts of fish live on the natural conditions of the water; they eat the aquatic plants, the worms and grubs, and the many kinds of ffsh-food that are naturally found in this forestzfowing stream and in its muddy bottom. The finer varieties, 15 per cent. of the whole, live on the fry of the coarse fish.
 The demand for course fish is chiefly from our European immigrants and among them largely from the Jews: though the Germans, Poles and Rus sians take great quantities. Tn Europe the carp has been the chief food fish for more than thousand years, and though in this country it is classed as a 'sucker" and considered ''too soft to eat" this is 8 fisherman's preju- dice which is without foundation. There is scarcely a more finely favored fish than Illinois river carp. Accustom- ed to carp and buffalo these people will not buy the seafish with which they are not familiar In Chicago, where the Ghetto takes great quanti- ties of buffalo and carp, these are largely drawn from Lake Calumet and the adjacent streams, and are brought to market alive in tanks, to be select ed by the purchaser in that condition. In times past the Jewish market in New York has been similarly supplied with Illinois fish. But the great majori- ty from the Illinois river are packed in ice, whole, 150 pounds to the box, and shipped by special refrigerator express, arriving often in New York still alive. The carp has greater power to endure such shipment than any other fish.
 The capture of these fish is one of the large industries of the Illinois val- ley, and returns generous amount of eastern money every year, The fish are taken under careful restrictions as to size of mesh, etc, in like" nets and seines: and recently to a certain extent trammels are being allowed in the run ning streams. A ike net is a trap net consisting of a double bag, the deeper one being the pound This Is distended by hoops or likes about five or six feet In diameter, and is hung in the stream at the opening in long net leader set on posts at the side of the river like the leader to herring weir. One counts thousands of these along the Illinois, and of the thousands of persons who live in "shanty boats along the stream each household Is the possessor of one or more. Many of them are owned by, and others are used regularly for,a certain large fish concerns. These concerns possess naph- tha launches and cars which patrol the river and collect the catches every day. The seines are used to some exSent in the Illinois, but as the river is in many places more than twenty feet deep since the sanitary canal flow was turn ed on, eeining Is not as easy as for merly. Nevertheless have seen a sin gle cast bring out a wealth of fish, consisting of buffalo and carp silver perch and black bass. The backwaters when released by the State, are secured with seines. Not all these fish go to the poorer markets. One finds Illinois river carp on the menu of the Waldorf-As- toria, and the fish commission publish and gladly distribute recipes used by the Waldorf chef and other famous cooks for preparing it for the table,. John l.. Mathews in Boston Transcript.