The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-10-31

AS it is now in some of the States,
the shad are taken when they first
enter the streams. The eggs are not
ripe at that time and are useless to
the hatcheries. The result is hat the
spaWn-takers must wait for the run
farther up stream. and millions are
lost. In North Carolina the fishermen
SO control the streams that the great
er part of the Shad cannot go up the
rivers to spawn. This was done to
such an extent that the supply of
North Carolina shad was greatly re-
duced. The output fell to 5000, 600
when the officers of the Bureau of
Fisheries went to the North Carolina
Legislature and secured certain pro-
tective laws. AS a result, this last
year the catch has been fifteen times
as great as it was before those laws
were passed, and the shad are rapidly
growing in number.
protected. There are fish nets running
from Washington all the way down to
Chesapeake Bay. The fishermen Of
Virginia run their nets as far as they
can ont into the middle of the Poton-
&C. The Maryland men do the same
from the opposite bank, and in the
middle Of the stream nets are SO
stretched that they catch the shad
which swim along the bottom. The
result is that the Potomac river, which
once had it's shad by the tens of mill
lions. had practically none this year,
and this fish is likely to be extermina-
ted as far as it is concerned. DR..
Smith says that If a law were enacted
keeping a strip one-third the width OF
the river free Of nets enough shad
would go up that strip to give us a
plentiful supply. 1t is the same in
many other parts OF the Chlteo
States.
Fish Ponds For the Farmers.
The day will come when every
farmer who has a pend or stream on
his place will raise his own fish, and
at the same time produce fish fer
the markets.. DR.. Smith tells me THAI
this is the case in many Of the u
tries Of Europe, n that it is 50 in
Germany irrespective of the fact
whether the farmer lives in the in
terror or along the sea From Ger
| many the fish commission has i'm
ported carp, and these are now be-
ing raised here in such quantities that
they sell for more than a million
dollars a year. In 1908, $4,000, 600
pounds Of them were caught in our
number were taken from private
Big Money in Oysters.
Some of the farmers OF the South
are now making money out Of oysters.
This is so all along the Atlantic coast,
ditu CSPCA 1iy oA ShS
shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Uncle
Sans fishermen have explored those
waters and shown the men how to
smooth over the bed Of the gulf in
various places and it with such
material that the oysters cling to.
DR.. Smith tells me hat upon many
Of these beds there had been no
oysters before, but that a year or
two after their making they were
producing them at h rate of about
! 1000 bushels to the acre. Those
oysters sold for so cents a bushe1,
making the shore waters yield a
product worth $1,000 per acre, many
times the money product of the best
cotton or rice fields in any part Of
the South.
Oyster planting is now lone to such
an extent that the greater part Of
u oyster supply comes from oyster
farms. The bivalves grow in warm
water as we'll as in cold, and along
the Gulf Of Mexico they are eaten
all the year around. Farther north
they are not SO good in July and
August.
japanese Oysters For San Francisco.
The fish commission has tried the
. experiment of transplanting the At