PRIVATE PISCICULTURE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4448, 22 June 1875, Page 3

PRIVATE PISCICULTURE.

(From the Scientific American.) Mr. Seth Green, the well known pisciculturist, states that he has invented a new method for transporting and hatching nearly all kinds of fish eggs, by which spawn can be carried for one hundred and thirty days’ journey, and can be hatched in any room in the house. One million eggs, it is also said, can be hatched by using a pail of water daily. We believe that fish culture by private parties can be rendered a lucrative source of income, provided it is followed with the same care as is exercised in the raising of poultry or any other live stock. Hundreds of farmers have streams and ponds on thenlands now of no value, save perhaps as watering places for cattle in pasture, and yielding a few worthless perch and catfish, perhaps an occasional trout or pickerel. If Mr. Green has solved the most difficult part of the problem, namely, the successful transportation of the eggs, the mode of stocking of waters and the rearing of the fish are not difficult subjects of which to acquire an adequate knowledge. One species of fish in particular, which is little known, will, we think, prove especially remunerative,, and for this reason we commend it to notice. We mean the land-locked salmon, which is a distinct species of the fish, though so closely resembling the ocean salmon as to suggest the idea that, at some remote period, a quantity of the latter fish, being by a convulsion of Nature barred from returning to the sea, had propagated in their land-locked quarters and eventually developed into a separate variety. The habits of the land-locked and ocean salmon are closely similar. The young fry of the former seem to remain in the fast water before going down to their ocean, the deep still water of the pond or lake, about the same time as those of the sahno salar. The average size of the fish is about one and a half pounds, though-it has been captured weighing as high as eight pounds. It requires running aerated water with access to still pools. Ns a table fish, the land-locked salmon is said to be superior to its ocean relative j and as game it is reported to be unequalled, rising to the fly from running water even in the hottest summer days. Mr. Seth Green’s apparatus consists of a simple wooden box, of a convenient size to be carried in the hand by means of the handle above. Its joints are covered -with tin. Inside are numerous small trays made of wood, covered below with canton flannel. The upper tray is provided with a hinge cover of the same materials. The spawn is placed upon the bottom of the trays, together with moss or seaweed, and kept moist. The temperature of the room may be so regulated that the spawn can be hatched in from fifty to one hundred and fifty days. Brook trout, salmon trout, white fish, and salmon eggs have been transported with success, over long journeys, by this means.