Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/228

 220 FISH CULTURE chored in the stream near the shore, in a gentle current which passes freely through the gauze and buoys up the eggs within. When hatched the fry are liberated in mid-stream, the young shad instinctively seeking the main current, where they are comparatively free from the small fish most likely to devour them. The eggs after life is observed in them have been kept at a low temperature for six days when packed in damp moss, but it is difficult to trans- port them for a long distance. The spawn of both shad and salmon is obtained in much the same manner as that of trout. The French government early gave its patronage to fish culture, and the* barren waters of the country have been stocked with appropriate fish : the rivers with salmon, the brooks with trout, and the sluggish streams, lakes, and ponds with carp, perch, eels, and pike. The establish- ment at Htiningen was erected under the pat- ronage of the government through the exer- tions of Prof. Coste in 1852. The buildings form a square comprising at the sides two hatching galleries 65 yards long and 9 yards wide, con- taining tanks and egg boxes. The buildings and ponds cover 80 acres. The water is sup- plied from springs on the ground, from the Rhine, and from a small stream called the Augraben. The establishment does not in general breed fish except by way of experi- ment, the chief business being the collection and distribution of eggs, which are brought mostly from Switzerland and various parts of Germany, and embrace those of several species of trout, the Danube and Rhine salmon, and the ombre chevalier. The commonest fish is the fera, similar to the whitefish of the United States. The spawn collected from various sources is carefully tended until it is sent to some point in need of it. Up to the season of 1863-'4 more than 110,000,000 eggs had been distributed, of which 41,000,000 were those of salmon and trout. With the cession of Alsace and Lorraine, this establishment passed into the hands of the Germans, and is now conduct- ed on a still larger scale under the auspices of the German fishery association; and success has attended the efforts to restock the Rhine and other streams. In its stead the French government have established another at Mont- beliard, in addition to those already in opera- tion at Clermont-Ferrand and elsew.here. Prof. Vouga has been employed for several years at Chanelaz near Neufchatel, Switzerland, by the government of that canton, in the artificial pro- pagation of trout, for the purpose of stocking the lake of that name and the streams flowing into it. He has recently succeeded in obtain- ing hybrids of the lake trout and the ombre chevalier, and in the autumn of 1873 established a course of instruction in theoretical and prac- tical pisciculture. The trout ponds of Heidel- berg are famous ; and the establishment of M. de Galbert on the Isere, at La Buisse, France, consisting of a hatching house and a series of ponds, is worthy of mention. The salmon- breeding establishment at Storm ontfi eld, Scot- land, is situated on the Tay, about 5 m. above Perth, and has been in operation about 20 years. The ponds occupy grounds sloping gently to- ward the river, and bounded at the top by the Stormontfield mill lade, the intervening dis- tance being about 500 ft. The water from the lade is discharged into a bed of gravel, through which it fiows into the channel which supplies the hatching boxes, which are 300 in number, and lie in 25 parallel rows of 12 each, at right angles to the lade. The boxes are 6 ft. long, 18 in. wide, and 12 in. deep, and are filled to within 2 in. of the surface of the water, first with fine, then with coarser gravel ; above this is a layer of stones of considerable size, among which the impregnated ova are placed, about 1,000 in a box. The boxes are connected with the two feeding ponds, the one a quarter of an acre and the other an acre in extent, which are again connected with the river. The result of the operations at Stormontfield has been a large increase in the numbers of salmon taken in the Tay, and in the rental of its fisheries. There is also an establishment at Tongueland on the Dee, where the hatching boxes are protected from the weather, occupying a room 70 ft. long in a lumber storehouse connected with a bakery. Several successful attempts at fish culture have been made in Ireland, notably by Mr. Ashworth on the Galway, and by Mr. Cooper on tributaries of the Ballisodare, those rivers having been stocked with salmon, and stairways having been built to enable the fish to ascend falls before impassable. Salmon have also been introduced into the Doohulla river, so called, which consists of several small lakes, originally connected with the sea by a tortu- ous brook, impassable by fish unless swollen by heavy rains, when white trout occasionally as- cended. The upper lakes have been connected with the lower one by an artificial cut, and this by another artificial channel with the sea, so that the waters are accessible to salmon. The most noteworthy Norwegian experiment is that of Prof. Rasch of the university of Christiania. The locality is a deep fiord, which runs up into the land about a mile, narrowing at the end to the width of a large trench, and opening out beyond into a basin about 300 acres in extent, with an average depth of 40 ft. Across the inlet Prof. Rasch in 1869 erected a fence which does not prevent the ebb and flow of the tide, but bars the outward passage of the fish. Within the enclosure a hatching apparatus for salmon and sea trout spawn was set up, con- necting with two small fresh-water ponds, sup- plied by a spring. The young fish are fed for a time in the ponds on fine-chopped mussels, which are found in the basin in abundance, and are then turned into the salt-water basin. This experiment has shown that sea trout may be reared without access to the sea. Prof. Rasch has also succeeded in producing a hy- brid of the salmon and the fresh-water trout, which, being unfruitful, attains a large size, and