live in water several degrees warmer than the brook-trout, they can occupy miles of these streams that could not be a home for the brooktrout. We have a fine lot of these fish that will be large enough to spawn in the spring of 1884, and as they spawn at a time when none of the others of the salmon family are spawning, they can have full attention. It is also to be hoped that the United States Commission from whom the supply now on hand come, can find it possible to furnish an increased supply in the future. I hope yet to see the time when this most excellent fish will be common to some portions of our Iowa streams. This fish is also of peculiar value as a pond fish for domestication. Hardy, a good feeder, of rapid growth and fine table qualities.

LAND-LOCKED SALMON.

The eggs of these fish are received from Grand lake stream, Maine, where they are taken by Hon. Charles Atkins, and are furnished free of charge, save for express charges, to the Iowa Fish Commission by the United States Fish Commission, by the courtesy of Hon. Spencer F. Baird, United States Fish Commissioner. If they could be made to succeed in our waters they would be a great acquisition thereto. There has been distributed as follows since last report:

The United States Commission have planted shad to quite an extent in the Mississippi river, and while they have not been caught at all points on the river, it is a well known fact that in some of the tributaries, notably the Ohio and Arkansas rivers, they have been caught in goodly numbers for several years, and a few have been caught in the lower portions of the Des Moines river. A few speci

mens have also been taken at different points on the Mississippi river. I think it is an established fact that the Mississippi will in time prove to be a shad river.

WHITE FISH.

The entire work of hatching the white fish has been done at Spirit Lake. The water, which is taken directly from the lake into the hatching-house, is so similar in character and temperature to that of the great lakes, that the eggs would thrive and hatch as well there as in the waters where they are naturally deposited. And as there are no suitable waters for these fish except the larger lakes of the northwest, they are when hatched at the most favorable point possible for distribution.

Several necessary improvements have been made at both of the hatching houses. At Spirit Lake the inflow pipe originally put in was found to be entirely insufficient and had to be taken out. In its stead we put in an eight-inch sewer pipe that now gives an abundant flow of water, sufficient to hatch as many eggs as shall at any time be desired. A new bulk-head, some new hatching-boxes, and a number of improved hatching-jars and hatching-cans have been supplied that will add much to the efficiency of the work.

At Anamosa six new carp ponds have been put in. This was found to be a necessity, as the water in the original ponds flowing directly from the trout ponds was found to be too cold, and owing to the heavy flow of water could never be heated enough to raise the water to a proper temperature for the carp to spawn in. They were almost too late to insure a great amount of success this year, although the carp are now breeding in some of them, and we hope to be able to report good success yet this season. But in any event the ponds are now ready for any future wants. Some new hatching-jars and cans have also been furnished at this house, and everything is in complete order for any future use that may be desired.

Of the practical results of the work of the Fish Commission in Iowa I think it will not be considered egotistical when I say that I have probably a much better knowledge than any other person in the State of Iowa, for I am every day in receipt of letters and marked newspaper articles upon this subject, and could, if I thought it would prove of any special value, publish enough evidences of its good effects to fill a volume as large as this report should be. But as this

has already been done in some of the former reports, I shall only say that I know that the bass of various kinds, croppies, sunfish, walleyed pike of both varieties, catfish, eels, trout, and many other kinds of fish have been established in many of the waters of Iowa, where they had never had a home until put there by the work of the Fish Commission. I might multiply evidence or give any amount of cases over the State where this is true, but will give but one instance. I think it was in 1875, I put a quantity of the striped bass in Spirit lake. Before that time no striped bass was ever seen in that system of waters. Last summer a minnow seine drawn for minnows on the south shore of this lake took at one haul over eighty young striped bass that would weigh from a few ounces to one pound and a quarter. And it is a common thing not only to catch the young fish when fishing for minnows but to catch grown ones weighing from two to four pounds in this lake. The successful introduction of any fish into waters not before inhabited by them is a work of great value; for as each variety of fish has peculiar habits of feeding, and takes varieties of food not taken by others, each new introduction adds (in so far as they take such food as but for their presence would be lost) to the capacity of such waters to supply food fish. And the introduction of various kinds of fish food such as cyclops, insects, snails, infusoria, etc., is a most valuable work where there are any fish that live upon such food; or where this kind of food is plentiful, the introduction of any kind of minnows, chub, dace, or other small fish is of extreme importance, for such food otherwise useless, would sustain large numbers of them while they in their turn would sustain a largely increased number of bass, wall-eyed pike, etc. In this way the introduction of carp, a vegetable feeding fish into many of our waters where vegetation grows in immense quantities will tend very largely to the increase of our better kinds of native fish by utilizing a heretofore useless source of food, and turning it indirectly through the medium of the carp into bass, wall-eyes, etc., upon which subject I shall have more to say in another portion of this report.

The work of fish breeding is being continually increased all over the world, and is awakening so great an interest that already two great international fishery expositions have been held, one at Berlin, in 1880, and another this season in England, that has been deemed of so great importance that almost if not all civilized nations have made especial appropriations and have sent Commissions to repre

sent them and the interests they have in the matter, and the present exposition is one of the wonders of the present enlightened age. Where most has been done at fish culture the greatest results have followed, and those States that have been long and energetically engaged in it, are to-day rapidly increasing their work. The State of Michigan, one of the first, and I believe the first Western State to undertake the work and who have heretofore appropriated about fifteen thousand dollars per term of two years, this year makes it thirty thousand dollars. And commissions have been so rapidly established that I do not know of a State that has no commission, and that are not energetically engaged in the propagation and increase of fish.

Mistakes have been made, and sometimes portions of the work done have proven flat failures. But these experiences come to all new work, much less I think to fish culture than to any class of work of equal extent known to me. The experience gathered from these few failures, make them worth perhaps as much to the world as they would have been had they proven successful.

THE GERMAN CARP.

I have been frequently asked to write something for publication in regard to this (to Americans) new fish, that is being so extensively and rapidly introduced into all sections of this country, for private ponds and public waters. I have refrained from doing so because I knew personally almost nothing of them. So much importance is now attached to the results that are to follow the distribution of so many of these fish to so many people who know perhaps less, and whose opportunities for study and observation in this direction have not been equally good with mine, that I have felt it a duty to attempt to write something for this report, in hopes that it may prove of benefit to those who may attempt their culture. In doing so I shall have largely to borrow suggestions from those whose experience qualifies them to speak understandingly upon this subject, adding such suggestions as my own observation may lead me to make. It is an old maxim that "anything that is worth doing is worth doing well," and to nothing does this apply with more force than in domestic fish cultMore failures than successes have been made in this kind of work because of ill-advised, unscientific, badly laid plans. And thousands of dollars in losses and innumerable failures could have

ure.

been saved and made successful by the outlay of a little time and money in gathering a little intelligent knowledge of the work attempted.

Mr. F. Zents, in bulletin of United States Fish Commission, says, that "the original home of carp is Asia Minor and Persia, and that it was known to the Greeks and Romans, but it is impossible to say when it was introduced into south and central Germany, and into France. There is documentary evidence that it was cultivated in France as a pond fish as early as 1258, and about the same time in Germany. It was introduced into England in 1514, and into Denmark in 1660."

There are three principal varieties of carp, viz.: Scale carp, mirror carp, and leather carp. The first is covered with regular concentrically arranged scales. The mirror carp is thus named on account of the extraordinary large scales that run along the body of the fish in three or more rows. The leather carp has usually only one or two rows of scales along the upper or upper and lower margins of the body, the rest of the body being a soft velvety skin. The mouths are toothless, lips very thick, and they have four barbels depending from the upper jaw.

Of the quality of carp for food Prof. Hessell says: "If the carp were a fish of inferior quality, its sale would doubtless be limited to the sea-port towns of north Germany and the principal cities of central Europe, as Vienna, Berlin, and Paris. In the latter city, in spite of the abundant supply of salt water and different fresh water fish, the carp is even preferred to these, and with the exception of trout and salmon, it frequently commands a price three times as high as that of all the rest. I maintain my assertion that the carp, whether it be scale, mirror, or leather, is one of the most excellent fresh water fishes." It is estimated that 500,000 pounds of carp are consumed annually in Berlin aloe. Prof. Baird (than whom there is no better authority) says: "It is a fish adapted to the farmers' ponds and mill-dams. It represents among the finny tribe the place occupied by poultry among birds. Where there is quiet water, with muddy bottom and abundant vegetation, there is the home of the carp; there it will grow with great rapidity, sometimes attaining a weight of three or four pounds in as many years. It is a vegetable feeder, and not dependent on man for its sustenance. As an article