Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1928-05-31
STARTS
ON BIG TRACT
NEAR OLMITO
20-Acre Site Donated
BY Parker to Pro-
duce Million Fish
Yearly For Lakes

A fish hatchery covering about
twenty acres devoted TO a superin.
tendent's Home. garage buildings
arrives, flower plots and dams. will
be built by tae Texas Game. Fish. and
Oyster coInmissicr on a dry resaca a
few Mills south Of OlmitO lake and
west 9Fthe main highway.
Tbds is the sixth hatchery built BY
xthef state without use Of tax money,
funds coming from artificial lure
Abait license money. The hatchery
Ghen completed will be beautified
Nth tropical and semi-tropical plants,
fnd will take care Of some $500 brood
Fsh supplying all lakes and resacas
N the Valley with about 1.000.0 600
bung fish a year. IL will maintain
Is own delivery trucks. and raise only
Rroppie or white perch. breame and
fhass. Croppie will be raised mostly,
as they do we'll in the Valley.
Parker Gives Land
A few short weeks ago Their was
not even ponds on paper, Just raw
land owned by the AL Parker Securi-
ties company. Some one proposed a
fish hatchery for the Valley and AL
Parker offered enough and out of
the Butler tract at 0lmito TO build
IL, and the state gratefully accepted
the offer. Soon thereafter there an
peared men with khaki breeches aid
broad hats and carrying funny Look
irg instruments that sat upon tripods.
They hacked az brush and cacti and
waded through water and slapped an
occasional mosquito, and then enc OF
them grabbed an axe and went at a
very plebian Job. He was cutting
wooden stakes, armfulls of 'em. and
piled EN- up until they looked like
cord wood After that the stakes dis
appeared and now they are stuck in
the ground with a carpet tack in the
top Of each. and the tack Is the apex
Of an angle or the starting point of
4 line. or what you will. AT any rate
woe unto him who kicks a stake and
rs tack awry.
To Start Construction
The work of these men was term
mated last week and the work of
building the dams and drainage ditch
IS is TO begin at once. S. G.. Garrett.
engineer in charge, announced Sat
lrday. The work is expected to take
about two and a half months. then an
expert in handling fish and their
young will come here from Austir
with a pipe in his mouth and a twin
kle in his eye, and take over the
hatchery with a CHEEKY "very good,
Garrett old thing. Just like the Cisco
job Then Garrett and Mrs. Gar
rett will pack their buds and drive a
few hundred miles 20 another place
where fish can be raised successfully
and the funny instruments will come
out OF their boxes and more stakes
will 20 into the ground and more lit
tie ponds will be made.
Just now. however. both Garrett
and Mrs. Garrett. who by the way
studied architecture at the University
Of Texas while Garrett xvas putting
finishing touches to his bachelor Of
science degree at the same school. are
wrapped up body and soul in the new
hatchery. Although the job is nom
iaally CARROTS. Mrs. Garrett Is
watching the worn with the keen eve
Of the artist.
Mrs. Garrett Aids
Mrs. CARROTS job Il that OF LAYING
out the landscape for the hatchery.
In other words she is a Landscape
architect. When the first dam rears
itself by the magic Of a mule skin
ner's vocabulary and many trips OF
a fresno scraper, Mrs. Garrett gets
busy with paper and %colors. BY the
time the last dam is up and firmly
settled, she is ready to start her
work. and before they will have pack
ed their funny instruments in the
back Of their funny auto. the whole
hatchery will be abloom with flowers
and s~hrubbery and trees.
But she plays second fiddle now.
and Garrett pOurs over field notes
by night and prods a score OF work
by day. There will be nine
ponds. he explained to a crowd Of
Saturday. with an aggregate
area Of about twenty acres. The com
plete hatchery including dams and
space for superintendent house. ga
rage. and other out houses. will take
IN about thirty acres. All the land II
the donation of AL Parker. he said.
To Get Free Water
Step by step. Garrett explained the
I uilding Of the hatchery and its
working after it would be complete.
The nine ponds will be divided into
~AN 1WA AANNnAlk anu Three LOT TlIN-
or in the v~ernacular of the
brood ponds" Each
pond will be Approximately the same
size and will be fed from a main canal
that will run from the big canal of
Cameron County Water District
No. s which will donate water. Each
POND will drain through a six-inch
cast iron pipe to a concrete box,
70 a large concrete drain pipe.
The boxes will be 3 1-2 feet by 3 i-2
feet by s feet. Garrett said, and will
te arranged in a horse shoe follow
ing the contour of the resaca. The
building Of the hatchery is the en-
sineer's ioH and the turning Of an
giles and determining angles of ele-
Vstion are processes quite too tech
rical for the average layman who is
Interested chiefly in fish. According
III, Garrett explained the problems of
he engineer with a few brief remarks
md a sweeping wave of his hand, and
hen spoke Of fish. Il
Good "Pan Fish"
we viii raise rroppie. breame and
he began. "Croppie is another
for white perch, aud breame are
,alled sun perch"
Both are excellent pan fish" Mr..
interposed.
"Pan WHAT" someone innocently
Easy to FRY in n gk;llel~ smil-