The Lynden tribune. [volume] (Lynden, Wash.) 1908-current, 1920-10-07
FISH FOR Dinner
AND FOR MARKET
SMALL TROUT PONDS ON
FARMS USE WASTE SPACE
AND PROVIDE FOOD
River, Creek, Spring and Even
Well Sufficient to Provide Wat
er-Fifty Per Cent Profit at
Present Market.

Have you little fish pond in your
back yard?
Every farmer with river, creek,
spring, or even good well with wind
mill can have a private fish pond in
which to raise his own brook trout,
according to Prof George c. Embody
of the University of Washington de-
partment of fisheries. Convert your
swamp into an asset and the creek
where the COW has the habit of get
ting mired into a source of income
that will put the butter and egg mon
ey in the back ground, by raising trout
frye to fish commissions and fish
hatcheries, Mr.. Embody says, and he
has the experiences of men already in
business in this state to back him up.
One of the first men to go into the
fish raising business in this section
was f. A. Beeler whose place near
Kent has lately been turned to the
uses of a country club where the club
man goes to catch his fish in the well
stocked pond and then has it served
to suit his taste. Mr.. Beeler has raised
trout there for number of years and
has had no trouble getting seventy
cents a pound and better in Seattle
for his crop whenever he chose to pull
a seine. He made business of buy
ing up all of the broken ice cream
cones from the bakeries and found
that the trout thrived on it.
Fish are more easily controlled
when grown in a series of small ponds.
according to Mr.. EmbOdy, who gives
the following directions for building
ponds and raising fish. Where there
are no natural ponds it is easy to
make them by grading with scraper
taking the dirt out of the middle of
the ponds and piling it up around the
outside for a dixie. Before building
the dixie scrape all sod from the
ground as it will rot and make the
dixie porous. Save any sod scraped
from the pond and under the dixie to
put inside the dixie at about the pros
pectve water level to keep the bank
from washing.
Puddle Porous Soil
Where the ground is sandy, or very
gravelly, it is necessary to work it up
to make the pond hold water. The
easiest way to do that is to pillow and
harrow it before turning any water
in and then as the water is filling the
pond follow around the edge with a
disk harrow keeping the harrow about
half in the water and half out. In
this way the dirt will be thoroughly
stirred up and the sediment in settling
will form a non-porous lining.
The depth of water in the ponds
may be controlled by a tile overflow
pipe fixed to drain the ponds. The top
of the overflow pipe should be at the
level wanted for the water. Two joints
of tile may be cemented together for
the vertical column and then set loose
in the elbow where the drain runs
out under the dixie. This loose joint
will not be absolutely water tight, but
it will be nearly SO and when it is
necessary to drain the pond the YER
teal pipe can be lifted out and the
water will run out to the level of the
drain.
Size and Shape
Make the ponds about twenty feet
wide by sixty to seventy feet long.
The stream of water from five or six
inch pipe will supply two or three
acres of ponds. In Kansas man runs
a family fish pond of about one-quar-
ter acre with a windmill where he
raises the water thirty-five feet. The
depth of the pond should average
about six feet deep.
Willows planted along the dixie will
help strengthen it and make shadow
for the fish, but should not be planted
so as to interfere with operating the
pond.
Cress should be planted along the
edge of the pond and water lilies may
be planted in the pond where their
leaves will shelter the bottom of the
pond from the sun; numerous minute
organisms also live on their stems.
Feeding the Fishes
Fresh fish make excellent food for
growing trout where they can be
bought cheap in the market. Herring
and smelt and all oily fish are best.
Then the liver, kidneys, spleen and
hearts of any kind of animals can be
used successfully. A good combina-
ton is made up of one-half fish meal