the stouter; she has a less-projecting under-jaw, and her fins are not so red. Take her up tenderly,' and do not go poking a clumsy thumb into her gills. Pass the finger and thumb with a gentle pressure along the abdominal region, and, if the fish is 'ripe,' the eggs will flow out freely. They should be received in a pan of water. Put the female back; take out the male and press him in like manner, and allow the expressed milky fluid to fall into the same pan. Stir the water with the hand, cover it, and allow it to stand for half an hour. At the end of that time the eggs which had stuck fast to the sides will become free and roll about. Now gently spread the eggs on the gravel of the trough, and the primary work is done. Should the female not prove ripe, keep her a few days in a pool or spring-hole. The fish thus captured for breeders should not be set free, but kept in a suitable pool till the next season. Such a preserve may easily be made by digging out a place a dozen feet square and three feet deep, grating the inlet and outlet, and leading a stream of water through it. The breeding fish here kept will feed voraciously, and will eat refuse scraps of meat, insects, caterpillars, clotted milk, hasty pudding boiled with milk, and small minnows. Thus fed, once or twice a day, they grow rapidly, and a half-pound fish will get to a pound in a year. Meantime, the eggs are growing also, and in their way. After three or four weeks two dark specks appear on each egg, and these, when held to the light, are seen to be the eyes of the embryo, showing through the translucent shell. This is a good time to pack eggs for transportation, Take a tin box, the size and shape of a pint measure, collect also a good handful of peat moss, (Sphagnum,) and wash it clean. Lay a stratum of wet moss in the bottom of the box, and cover the same with a fold of the gauze called 'musquito bar. On this gauze spread gently a single layer of eggs, and cover them with a second fold of musquito bar. Then put more moss, and another layer of eggs in like manner, and thus continue until the box is full. Put on a cover with a few holes in it, pack the tin in a case of sawdust, and the eggs are good for a month without opening. When they are unpacked take the moss off the top, then lift them out by the gauze, and place them in the hatching-trough. It will be found that they have developed almost as much in the wet moss as they would have done in the water. The tiny embryo may be seen jerking itself uneasily in its spherical prison; a movement that continues to increase until, after two or three months from impregnation, (according to the temperature of the water,) the creature bursts its shell and appears in all its grandeur, looking, to say the truth, more like a spiritual polliwog than a real salmonide. This polliwog's character arises from the great yolk sac, or, rather call it, havresac, for it bears the thirty days' rations of this recruit. All that time he lies still without foraging. But thereafter we must issue to him, for now he appears as a genteel minnow, with bars on his sides. Twice or thrice a day a little clotted milk, rubbed very fine in water, must be put in the trough, and the fry may be seen eagerly to swallow the floating particles. With enough food, room, and water they will grow fast, and will take larger and larger morsels. At a year old they may very well weigh four ounces, though they may be somewhat larger or much smaller, according to their treatment. Their increase will depend on depth of water, and quantity and variety of food."

Prizes for fish-rearing.-The Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture has offered two prizes, one of three hundred dollars and one of two hundred dollars, for the best two establishments for the culture of food-fishes in Massachusetts. The awards will be made March 1, 1872, and are to be determined by a consideration of the number of

species cultivated, the number and condition of individuals, the number of eggs hatched and young reared, and the neatness and economy of the establishment, and the excellence of the fixtures.

Area for fish-farming.-Few realize the extent of inland water in which fish culture can aid in the enlargement of food production. In the State of New York, for example, the area of lakes is pearly half a million acres, (466,457,) the coast line 270 miles, and the number of lakes 647. Of the larger, Cayuga is 35 miles long; Seneca, 35; Oneida, 20; Otsego, 20; Chautauqua, 18; Crooked, 18; Canandaigua, 16; Skaneateles, 16; Owasco, 12; Hemlock, 8; Honeoye, 5, and Conesus, 5. These waters are ample for the annual production of edible fish to the value of many millions of dollars, sufficient to aid materially in supplying subsistence to the dense population of the State of New York.

As New York is thus made to illustrate the extent of inland waters, without reference to the chain of inland seas stretching westward to Minnesota, the seaboard bays and estuaries of Maryland and Virginia, with many hundreds of miles of coast line, may serve to show how vast an area of tide-water is accessible for fish-producing and fish-catching purposes.

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE BY STATE ACTION.

As early as 1856 a commission upon pisciculture was authorized in Massachusetts, which resulted in a few experiments and a report. In April, 1865, upon remonstrance of New Hampshire and Vermont against preventing migration of fishes by high dams on the Connecticut and Merrimack Rivers, the legislature appointed two commissioners, Theodore Lyman and Alfred A. Reed, to investigate the question. In December of the same year these commissioners reported to the governor and council, and in May, 1866, the legislature provided for the ap pointment of two commissioners for five years to carry out a general plan for opening the above rivers to the passage of shad and salmon over the dams. Mr. Lyman was again appointed, and Alfred R. Field was associated with him. In December, 1866, they were able to report the finishing of the Merrimack fishways, and the opening of the New Hampshire section of the river by the authorities of that State. The powers of the commissioners were enlarged in 1867, and they entered at once upon a general examination of the fishways, and commenced restocking the waters of the State. In June, 1868, a question having arisen relative to the liability of the proprietors of the Holyoke dam for the construction of a fishway, an appropriation of twelve thousand dollars was made for such improvement. The appropriations of the Massachusetts legislature in aid of fish culture for a single year have amounted to thirty thousand dollars.

A recent communication from Theodore Lyman, president of the Massachusetts commission, reports the progress of their official operations, and announces their success in opening several rivers, especially the Merrimack. The Lawrence fishway over the high dam at that place has been a difficult one, both from its height and the necessity of great strength as a protection against ice. Its cost has exceeded eight thousand dollars, and while it carries the fish over in its present condition, some projected improvements will render it an undoubted success. The commission has stocked ponds with black bass, and bred salmon, trout, lake trout, (Salmo toma,) and land-locked salmon (S. Gloveri;) distributed many millions of shad spawn, but failed in efforts to obtain that of the white fish, (Coregonus alba,) the Belgrade smelt, and the wall-eyed pike, (Lucio perca.)

Labors of Commissioner Green.—Mr. Green, while awaiting legislative aid for fish culture in his own State, has volunteered his services in other sections. He gives the following account of his operations:

"On the 11th of May, 1868, I put four thousand shad-spawn, properly impregnated, into a hatching-box at Long Bridge, on the Potomac, the water being at a temperature of sixty-four degrees; on the 13th they showed signs of life, and I put in seventy thousand more. On the 14th the form of the fish was visible, and on the 17th they hatched. To draw public interest to the matter, I hatched some in a tumbler in the house of General Spinner, at Washington. They left the egg eighty-four hours after impregnation. I hatched fifteen hundred in a salt-box, with a sieve bottom, in a room in the treasury building. On the 13th of May, I had also obtained a quantity of white-perch spawn. This is of a glutinous nature, and sticks fast to brush, weeds, or grass, and can be readily transported in that condition. It hatched in about a week, with the temperature of the water at about sixty-two degrees. In the Potomac the striped bass and herring spawn May 25, the sturgeon May 20, and the catfish June 10. From that river I proceeded to the James, and continued my endeavors to interest the fishermen in propagating shad. Then I returned to New York, stopping on the Susquehanna and the Delaware, the latter a magnificent stream, where shad culture might be carried to any extent, and which might be filled with fish. On June 4, the fishermen were taking up their nets at Carmansville, and along the lower part of the Iludson, as they were only catching four or five fish a day. At Clifton I saw a shad with the spawn running from it. On the 18th I put a quantity of spawn into a box at James J. Mulls's fishery, near Coeyman's landing, and saw evidences of life in thirty-six hours, with water at seventy-seven degrees. I had much trouble in getting spawners; they can be taken only at night. Both on the Hudson and at Holyoke my experience was the same; during the day'none were to be had; from 7 p. m. to 12 p. m. we could take them in proper condition, but after 12 p. m. we could only take unripe fish. This leads me to think they deposit their spawn during the day. The steamboats were troublesome, the waves that followed them washing over my boxes and carrying away the spawn. I had to locate my boxes behind the erections put in the river to deepen the channels. Very few shad are to be found above Albany; not one will be taken, on an average, at a haul, although there are several other kinds of fish more abundant. There must be an extremely small number that run the gauntlet below. successfully. After I had thoroughly examined the Hudson, I proceeded to Holyoke, and continued the artificial propagation of shad until I was stopped by the hot weather. I instituted a series of experiments which showed conclusively that while shad will hatch with water at a temperature of seventy-eight degrees, the eggs will all die when the temperature rises to eighty-two degrees.

"In the fall of this year (1868) I commenced the artificial culture of white fish. I obtained a quantity of the spawn, and submitted it to various courses of treatment. My most successful plan was to manage it as I do the ova of trout-to put it in my hatching-troughs, which are twenty-four feet long, with an inclination of three inches, and which are divided by bars across, two inches high. Gravel is laid in the compartments one and a half inch deep, so that the depth of water is only half an inch. The eggs are heavy, like those of trout, and sink instantly in water. In thirteen days the fish were visible in the egg by the aid of the microscope, and in twenty-one days they exhibited signs of life, the water standing at a temperature of forty-five degrees. They hatch