RECENT PROGRESS IN FISH CULTURE.

The artificial propagation of edible fishes, which is shown by experi ments in every quarter to be practicable, and also in a high degree economical of the material of reproduction, is assuming national importance. Admitting that it may never become one of the great producing interests of the nation, it must be acknowledged that, while it furnishes instructive popular experiments in natural history, and gratifies and educates a natural taste for rural pursuits, it undoubtedly adds to the luxuries of generous tables, and increases in some degree the food supplies of the people. That public fisheries can be improved by artificial means, at small expense, may be established by undoubted proof; and that he who accomplishes such a result is a public benefactor, will be readily admitted. If, as science asserts, a fish diet is a fortifier of the brain, who needs it more than the restless, rushing, irrepressible American?

FISH CULTURE NO NOVELTY.

The Chinese, who keep a constant supply of fish in their rivers and canals, notwithstanding the unexampled density of their population, have practiced fish-hatching successfully for centuries. Fish are there so cheap that a penny will buy enough for a breakfast for a small family. An ingenious method of artificial hatching has been adopted, which is worthy of mention, at least as a novelty. The business of collecting and hatching the spawn for the supply of owners of private ponds is extensive. When the season for hatching arrives, the operators empty hens' eggs by means of small openings, sucking out the natural contents and substituting the ova. The eggs are placed for a few days under a hen. Removing the eggs, the contents are placed in water warmed by the heat of the sun, the eggs soon burst, and the young are shortly able to be removed to waters intended for rearing them.

The Romans were adepts at fish culture. Sergius Orata, who is reported as the originator of artificial oyster beds, grew them by millions in great reservoirs at Baiæ, on the Lucrine Sea, and built a palace near for convenience in serving his famous oyster suppers. Lucullus is said to have sold his stock of fish at £35,000. Some epicures nourished pet breeds of fish, as cattle breeders perfect particular strains of blood.

WHAT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED IN EUROPE.

France, England, Scotland, and Ireland, among other European states, are enjoying a manifest increase of fish supplies from artificial propaga tion. Many curious facts have demonstrated the feasibility of restocking the salmon rivers. Loch Shin, a lake of the Sutherland Mountains, in Scotland, having as an outlet the salmon river Shin, is fed by four rivers, the Terry, Fiack, Garvie, and Curry, which, prior to 1836, contained no salmon. In that year fish of the outlet river were conveyed in their spawning season to these streams, and ever since their progeny have passed through the lake to their native waters.

The Tay of Scotland, in which salmon, formerly abundant, became nearly extinct, has now a plentiful supply, through the efforts of the

pisciculturists Buist and Brown, at their propagating establishment at Stormontfield. The cost has been trifling. The Robe River, in Ireland, by means of a fishway two miles in length, five rods wide, with a fall of thirty feet, has assumed importance as a salmon stream. A fall in the Claregalway has been artificially surmounted, and one of the best fisheries in Great Britain is the result.

In the larger streams of France a good beginning has been made. Basins have been dug along the shores of some of them, furnished with canals for ingress and egress of the water, which have proved safe harbors for fecundated ova and the young that are too small to risk the dangers of the stream. The parent fishes voluntarily seek these artificial spawning beds and deposit their roe, where a much larger than the usual proportion of eggs will be hatched. The damage to fish spawn from city sewers is avoided by these works, wherever constructed. Two years ago there were eighty such basins distributed through thirty-five departments of France, at a cost of only $5,000-about $60 each. As early as in 1861 six millions of fish had been turned out of these basins. Protection is accorded to all fish in the spawning season; none can lawfully be taken except for fish breeding. From the celebrated piscicultural laboratory at Huningue, (near Bâle, on the Rhine, supported by the government of France, millions of eggs of the Danube salmon, (Ombre chevalier,) and other valuable kinds, are annually distributed to the chief rivers of the country. They are packed in wet moss and inclosed in wooden boxes. People are employed to procure these eggs from the rivers and lakes of Switzerland, and from the Rhine and Danube, and are paid 18. 8d. per thousand. The spawn of a fish weighing twenty pounds often yields to the pisciculturist a sum equivalent to eight dollars in our currency. A considerable trade has arisen in fish eggs.

It is claimed that the artificial breeding of oysters in France pays an average profit of a thousand per cent. Results have been equally satisfactory in England.

The variety essayed in operations of French pisciculture is wonderful. Even the muscle is grown artificially. Nor is this a new thing; for a muscle farm near Rochelle has been cultivated, it is claimed, for hundreds of years. The muscles are grown on frames of basket work, called bouchots, and are larger than those grown naturally, and of superior flavor.

The information concerning fish-breeding experiments, with details of accomplished results, was quite full and satisfactory, as reported from all parts of France, at the International Exposition of Fisheries, recently held at Arcachon, in that country. Many rivers, almost destitute of fish a year or two previous, had been restocked to a wonderful degree.

At Concarneau, in Lower Brittany, are large riviers or tanks, hewn out of solid rock to the depth of ten feet-one containing only lobsters, another turbot and rock fish, and others still the nurseries of fish of various kinds. This establishment is under government management, and is self-supporting, the sale of fish more than paying the expenses.

Lake trout and salmon are bred in the Lake of Geneva, in Switzerland, by the efforts of Professor Chavannes, who receives a stipend of eight hundred franes from the government and the right of fishing in a small stream near Granson, at the south end of Lake Neufchatel.

At Cortaillod, south of Neufchatel, Dr. C. Vanga also receives eight hundred francs per annum for efforts toward increasing the lake trout in the Lake of Neufchatel. In the second year of his operations he turned out eighty thousand. He has adopted a novel method of fructifying the roe. Instead of letting the roe fall into the water, he allows

it to fall upon the bottom of a clean, dry vessel, and, pouring water enough over it to cover it, he expresses a few drops of milt, so that the water, when stirred, becomes slightly colored. In about a minute he pours off the water, replaces it with fresh water, and transfers the roe to the hatching-boxes. He obtains in this way sixty per cent., while at Huningue thirty to thirty-five per cent. only are hatched.

The fish-breeding works at Huningue, near Bâle, were built in 1852, upon a plan of Professor Coste, of Paris, at a cost of 30,000 francs, and have since been greatly enlarged. Water is conveyed from springs, by an underground canal two thousand feet long, into a building, in which it is divided into three parallel canals two feet wide, the bottoms covered with gravel, and gratings laid down on which to place the hatching-boxes, which are eighteen inches long and six broad, placed in rows of four through the length of the canal. These boxes contain each two thousand roe "corns," and seven millions are annually received into tthe establishment from Switzerland, North Austria, and other regions. In 1865, four millions of roe "corns" were distributed to private individuals, and three hundred to four hundred thousand small fry were hatched. For transportation of the latter, round, tin jars are used, ten inches high and nine inches in diameter. They are half filled with water, with which air is mixed through a perforated pipe fastened to the bottom. In such a vessel three thousand three months old can be conveyed, the water being changed once in three hours.

SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT IN AFRICA.

The following extract from a letter received from Hon. Amos Perry, United States consul at Tunis, in Algiers, gives information concerning a profitable and somewhat novel mode for raising fish for market:

"At Bizerta, a maritime city of seven thousand or eight thousand inhabitants, situated about fifty miles from here, is a contrivance for the production of fish, which may merit some attention.

"A small stream running into the sea is widened out just above the city into a shallow pond of some sixty or a hundred acres. The water in this pond is at no time much above the level of the sea, and at times the water flows profusely back from the sea into the pond. Most of the area of this pond has been from time immemorial divided into twelve apartments, separated by an upright cane fence, which allows the water to circulate through all the apartments, and at the same time prevents the fish in the different apartinents from communicating with each other. Each of these apartments is said to contain a different kind of fish.

"These fishing grounds are under municipal control. No one is allowed to approach them except the officers of the government. The officers are said to take the fish from the same apartment for one entire month, and then to leave that ground unmolested for the next eleven months ensuing. "The fish are taken in nets at a fixed hour each day. When I witnessed the operation, several boatloads of fish were brought ashore and deposited in the government fish-house. There they were carefully sorted over. Persons from the city and from villages near by were on hand to get their daily supply, at an expense merely nominal. Most of the fish were put into baskets and sent off on camels and mules to supply the markets of Tunis and different points.

"I could not learn that any artificial means, other than those named, have ever been employed for breeding these fish. Our consular agent at Bizerta informs me that the profits realized by the government are from twelve thousand to fifteen thousand dollars a year."