Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1875 — Is Fish Culture Profitable? [ARTICLE]

Is Fish Culture Profitable?

Ik answer to an inquiry as to the profits of fish culture for their flesh only, Mr. Fred. Mather, a noted pisciculturist, writes to the Forest and Stream as follows : Fish culture is a broad field, and after all the successes which are on record there are still skeptics. Of course there are failures. So in all business. One party had not water enough; another could not get food, etc. But there are others who succeeded by having everything favorable in connection <ith the requisite amount of brains. One great drawback on private fish culturists has been, in my opinion, the desire to confine themselves to what are called game fishes. They seem like boys who mingle work and play. The game fish are more or less cannibals, and it is this that raises the grayling in my estimation far above the brook-trout, for the trout are piscivorous as well as insectivorous, while the grayling cannot eat fish, but thrives on the refuse of the slaughterhouse as well as the trout does. There are but few places suitable for raising trout on a large scale, and it is only on a large scale that it will pay. An ordinary spring will suffice to furnish a few, but to turn out a ton or more a year requires not only a large flow of water, but also a great quantity of food. There are those who have made it pay, but I do not feel at liberty to publish what little I know •of their business. Fish culture for profit And fish culture for sport are distinct things, mid the following gives my ideas on “game fish”:

1.1 have kept trout at a temperature above 60 deg., in fact as high as 75 deg. where there was a good flow and consequently a rapid change. 2. Don’t dam a ravine for a pond; the wind will blow leaves in. which; with the leaves and drift brought down by rams, will clog the screens and the floods will carry everything away. 3. If you dam the ravine, do it high up and lead the water in a ditch along the hillside into ponds and let all floods and surface water go over the dam and down the old channel. 4. I find that trout kept at the head of my spring, where the temperature is 49 deg., do not grow much, while those kept below, where it is 60 deg. and 65 deg., grow rapidly, and trout fry, if left free, will work down where the water is even warmer. 5. Black bass, pickerel and perch are recommended where the water is too warm for trout; but these fish are all cannibals; the first-named is good for the table and the sportsman; the second is a gormandizing beast, unfit to associate with decent fishes and only eatable when nothing better can be had; the third is a good little pan fish but terrihlf destructive to other fish. 6. If I were asked for a list of fishes to be kept in waters not suitable for trout or grayling it would comprise white fish, ciscoes, smelts, the large carp of Europe and the squaretailed variety of catfish that is known in the Eastern States as a bull-head, hornpout, etc. The indiscriminate introduction of predacious fishes to please the sportsman has been carried too far, and many waters are filled with them that will be wanted for a more peaceable and prolific fish in a few years. If you wish to stock a hundred acres of land with animals what kinds will you choose —lions tigers, wolves, weasels, etc., or cattle, sheep, deer and rabbits* And from which class would you expect the greater number of pounds of meat*