Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1883 — Something About Carp. [ARTICLE]

Something About Carp.

Applications sor —young carp are constantly being received from all portions of the country, and nil manner of questions are constantly being asked the Commissioners. To answer the latter, they are preparing a pamphlet, which will contain, among other things, the following description of carp: “The carp is a pond fish, and is especially adapted to small bodies of still and muddy water. They are not, properly speaking, a game fish. They can be wintered in a cellar, with proper care. They are quite hardy, and can be kept alive out of water, if in a mass, twenty-four hours. There are three species of the carp—the scale, leather aud mirror. As food they are equal or superior to catfish, suckers, perch and all the common native varieties. They arc fit for the table from October to May..: Carp will .thrive in ditches or cranberry bogs if free from turtles or snakes. They grow rapidly in warm water and very slowly in cold. They will live in water so shallow that their backs sometimes protrude. They are a sluggish fish, and care nothing for running water. They should be cared for as much as chickens and pigs are on a farm, and will soon become accustomed to coining to a certain spot on the edge of the pond every day and eating from your hand. Kitchen refuse is good food for them, and they will rapidly fatten and grow on such diet. Salt meats and alkali are injurious. Fish thus fed sometime grow to the weight of from fifty to seventy-five pounds each. If properly cqved for a 5-year-old carp will spawn 50,000 eggs annually. The carp will not destroy other fish. Their worst enemies are frogs, minks, mud cats, turtles, snakes, catfish, trout and other fish. The value of carp is shown by the fact that they are sold by private fish culturists nt $5 per pa’r, or SBS per 100. A oneacre pond will produce 1,500 pounds the first year, aud 2,500 pounds each year thereafter. In Europe they are sold iu the markets at rather high prices.— Washinyton liepublican.