The undersigned has the honor to remain, with high respect, your obedient servant, SAMUEL B. RUGGLES, Delegate of the United States at the International Hon. HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State, &c., &c., &c. [Inclosure No. 1.] Communication from Robert B. Roosevelt, one of the commissioners of fisheries of the State of New York, to the Hon. Samuel B. Ruggles, delegate of the United States to the seventh International Statistical Congress, to be held at the Hague in September, 1869. SIR: In compliance with your request that I should inform you of the condition and prospects of pisciculture in the United States, I have prepared the following statement, which I believe embraces all the points on which you desire information. Although my official duties are properly confined to the State of New York alone, I have, as the United States does not assume jurisdiction in matters of this character, undertaken to furnish you with a general review of the present status of pisciculture in all the Northern States where attention has been paid to it, and to advise you as to what has been done, either by public or private effort, and to supply you with such statistics as the present condition of the enterprise renders possible. It is presumed that you do not want a practical treatise on the details of the subject, but merely a general review, and to this limit I shall confine myself, except in one or two instances where it would seem desirable that important American discoveries should be brought to the attention of foreign pisciculturists as presenting suggestions that may be of value to them. The first portion of the United States which appointed commissioners of fisheries was that known among us as the New England States, those lying to the eastward and northward of New York, and which, from their natural conformation, are peculiarly adapted to the successful practice of fish culture. From the fact that the same rivers and lakes lie upon the borders or within the jurisdiction of several distinct sovereignties, joint action among contiguous States was a prime necessity, and in the year 1865 laws were passed appointing commissioners for Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. These commissioners proceeded at once to perform their duties, and formed themselves, by voluntary action, into a consolidated association, under the title of the New England commissioners of river fisheries. In the year 1866 a commissioner was appointed for the State of Pennsylvania, and in the year 1868 the following law was enacted by the State of New York: "CHAPTER 285. AN ACT to appoint commissioners of fisheries for the State of New York. Passed April 22, 1868-threefifths being present. "The people of the State of New York, represented in senate and assembly, do enact as follows: "SECTION 1. A commission of fisheries for the State of New York is hereby established. "SEC. 2. It shall be the duty of the commissioners to examine the various rivers, lakes, and streams of the State of New York, and the waters adjoining the same, with a view of ascertaining whether they can be rendered more productive of fish, and what measures are desirable to effect this object, either in restoring the production of fish in them, or in protecting or propagating the fish that at present frequent them, or otherwise; and such commissioners shall report the result of their labors, and any recommendations they may have to offer, at the next meeting of the legislature of this State. "SEC. 3. Horatio Seymour, Seth Green, and Robert B. Roosevelt are appointed commissioners under this act, to hold office for two years, and a sum of one thousand dollars is appropriated for their necessary expenses in carrying this act into effect, which the treasurer shall pay to them on the warrant of the comptroller, from time to time, as their vouchers for such expenses shall be exhibited and approved. "SEC. 4. This act shall take effect immediately." The State of Maryland has intrusted the consideration of all questions relating to her fisheries to the governor, and no other States have as yet taken any action on the subject; so that my investigations are confined mainly to that portion of the Union which lies above Virginia and east of Ohio; but it may be well to remark that the interest of the people has been greatly aroused by public discussion, and by the experi ments which have been made, and the success which has attended them; that the present depleted condition of our fisheries has alarmed the country, and made the necessity of immediate action apparent to all; and that there can be no doubt that at no distant day the claims and advantages of pisciculture will meet the consideration of all but the youngest and least developed of our States. The following is a list of the names of the commissioners who have already been appointed; to set out the laws under which they are acting would make this report too cumbersome: Maine.-Charles G. Atkins, Augusta; N. W. Foster, East Machias. New Hampshire.-Hon. H. A. Bellows, Concord; W. A. Sanborn, Weirs. Connecticut.-H. Woodward, Middletown; James Rankin, Old Saybrook; James A. Rhode Island.-Alfred H. Reed, Apponang; Newton Dexter, Providence. New York.-Hon. Horatio Seymour, Utica; George G. Cooper, Rochester; Robert B. Roosevelt, New York. Pennsylvania.-James Worrall, Harrisburg. THE SHAD, Alosa præstabilis.-Of the various species of fish which inhabit or visit the American waters, the shad, Alosa præstabilis, undoubtedly offers the most advantages for artificial propagation. It passes the winters in the ocean, where it obtains unlimited supplies of food, and grows rapidly. It annually ascends all the principal rivers which debouch into the Atlantic Ocean; its fecundity is enormous, reaching nearly forty thousand ora to each pound of weight. The young can be hatched in the simplest possible mauner in from a few days to two weeks' time; and when sold at retail for five or ten cents a pound, no cheaper or better food can be imagined. It was once vastly numerous, and there would seem to be no insuperable difficulty in its being so again. Upon it the main, hope of successful pisciculture in this country is founded, and vast interests are already involved in its abundance or scarcity, and employed in its capture. The shad, in their annual migrations, appear first in the Southern States, entering the rivers of Florida in February, and advance steadily northward as the season progresses until they arrive in Maine during the months of June and July. They are probably controlled by the heat of the weather, as the ora will not hatch at a temperature of water of much under sixty-two, and will die if it passes above seventy-eight degrees. Between these two points the rapidity of the development of the embryo increases or diminishes in exact ratio with the rise and fall of the thermometer. It is not positively ascertained that shad, like salmon, return to the river where they were hatched, but we have reason to believe that this is the fact; and experiments have tended to show that this rule applies equally to the menhaden, Alosa tyrannus, and the common herring, Alosa harengus. It is the commonly received opinion that male shad return sooner than the females, and make their appearance the ensuing spring after their birth, when they are just one year old; and that the female shad do not reappear until their second year. It is also thought that shad reach maturity in three or four years, and that they do not retire to Temote regions in winter, and seek our coast in vast migrating hosts every spring, giving off their numbers indiscriminately to every river, but that they pass the cold season not very far away, and generally, if not invariably, return to the rivers where they were bred. A shad will, when full grown, produce 100,000 eggs; of these, say 500 will hatch in a natural way. By a simple method of artificial propagation 98,000 are hatched, instead of 500; in fact, even more than this have been obtained in actual experience by a procedure which is simple, inexpensive, and invariably successful. Shad eggs have merely to be placed in a box with a wire screen at the bottom, and floating in the water at such an angle to the current that the spawn will be kept in gentle notion. In from three to six days they will be hatched. As soon as the fry appear they may be turned loose in mid-stream, where they are comparatively safe from their natural enemies, the smaller varieties of fish, which lurk along the shore; and the boxes may be set to work hatching a new supply immediately. This invention was discovered and perfected by Mr. Seth Green, the leading pisciculturist of America, and with it he has already turned hundreds of millions of shad into the rivers of our own and other States. The wire screen is made of common netting, either of iron coated with coal tar, or, if permanency is desired, of brass, the wires being about seventeen to the inch. The box should be a foot wide by eighteen inches long, and is kept at the proper angle, which has to be determined by experiment in currents of different strength, by securing wooden floats, say two-inch strips, to the sides. The boxes may be tailed one behind the other, and the current should keep the ora moving like bubbles in moderately boiling water, I have described this invention thus minutely, as a digression from the main subject, for the reason that it will probably be found of vast use in the propagation of other fish, and it is extremely cheap, convenient, and effective. The production of our shad fisheries has fallen off immensely, and loud complaints are heard from the fishermen. The price has risen proportionately, and this fish, wh ch was once the common food of the poor, is fast becoming a delicacy of the rich. This diminution is not confined to any one section of the country, but is universal. It is due primarily to over-fishing; and secondarily to the erection of impassible dams on the fluvial portions of the rivers. The supply of anadromous fish depends largely upon the extent of the spawning ground, and for reasons that are apparent to those who have studied the subject; among others, that where fish are crowded they will interfere with one another, and the ora have a poorer chance for vivification. But not only have the numbers been reduced, but the individual size has diminished. If they are netted in excess of the supply, the larger fish will suffer the most injury, and the smaller the mesh used in the nets the more serious the destruction. The meshes of our gill nets rarely exceed five inches in size, while those used in the pounds or fykes are but three inches across when stretched, and take young shad that can only be used for manure, to which wasteful purpose many hundred millions are annually devoted. In two years these delicious and valuable fish will attain a weight of over two pounds, and in three years they will weigh four or five pounds, but they rarely grow much larger. There are three kinds of nets used for taking shad-pounds, gill nets, and seines. The pound is a net spread on stakes, with a long wing, led to the shore, and carried above high-water mark; at the outer end of this an inclosure is made of the netting, so constructed that while fish can enter readily they cannot find their way out. The fish, in coasting along the shore, looking perhaps for a river to ascend, that they may spawn, or, in their annual migrations, always keep near the dry land, and it is only the late run that follows the deeper channel. In their progress they strike the wing of the pound, which, having a mesh of often only two inches across, stops even the smallest fish; they follow the obstruction to its outer extremity, in order to get around it, and enter the trap from which there is no escape. Many of these wings are a thousand yards in length, and some of them much more; they catch shad, herring, alewives, bluefish, bass, and whatever else comes along, in vast numbers. The destruction of the small and comparatively worthless shad is terrible; the larger pounds sometimes take a week to set, and the yield from them is enormous. Gill nets are set on stakes, are made of fine twine, and are almost invisible to the fish. The shad, in ascending the river, run their noses into the meshes until the twine passes over their gills, and being too small to go over their bodies holds them. They are fatal, disastrously so, for they kill many, which escape only to die. They require daily tending, or the fish spoil or are eaten by others. Drift nets are arranged on the same general principle, except that they are allowed to drift about with the tide, iustead of being secured to stakes. They are kept perpendicular by buoys along the top and leads at the bottom, and are drawn out straight across the current by a boat attached to one end, which is rowed in the proper direction. They are as objectionable as the kind last described, and require even more labor. Seines are those nets which are drawn by hand, sweeping round the fish which are to be taken; their mesh is usually as small as two inches, and they sweep up what the others leave. The first attempts at the artificial breeding of shad were made on the Connecticut River by Mr. Seth Green, under the directions of the New England commissioners. The experiments were commenced early in July, 1867, and after several failures proved an absolute success by the use of the boxes above described. In them, out of ten thousand eggs, all but seven have been known to hatch. The spawners could only be obtained at night, and the fry, which cannot be kept in confinement for any length of time, because the umbilical sac only contains nourishment for two or three days, were immediately turned loose in the middle of the river, where it was found they were able to take care of themselves. Several millions of shad fry were thus hatched and set at liberty in the Connecticut. Of course, as an initial experiment, the result was but a moderate success, and hundreds of millions of young would be needed to produce a marked effect on the yield of the river. Nevertheless, young shad, supposed to be yearlings, were found to be far more abundant than usual in the Connecticut during the ensuing spring, and their presence could not be attributed to any other cause. In the year 1869 it was found that the yield from this river had improved decidedly, the fishing being better than the average, whereas the productiveness of all the other rivers, including the Hudson, which is the nearest large water-course, had gone on steadily diminishing. Here was a palpable and unanswerable fact which seemed to establish the benefit of artificial shad culture, and to prove that these fish could be hatched at a rate that would supply the wants of an increasing population; and from this single experiment it is reasonable to suppose that many hundred thousand pounds of excellent food were added to the productions of the States of Massachusetts and Connecticut. In the year 1868 the second attempt at shad raising in the Connecticut River met with a serious reverse; the season was unusually warm, and early in July there were some intensely hot days, with a bright sun. The temperature of the water rose to eighty degrees, the spawn died, and the operations had to be discontinued; even many full-grown shad perished, and it is feared that the fishery is permanently injured. Better success attended the third attempt in 1869, as the requirements were more perfectly understood. No insuperable difficulties have been encountered, and the artificial breeding of shad is now established as a successful means of supplying the people with cheap food. Shad culture was commenced on a small scale in the State of New York in the spring of 1868, not with the expectation of any positive result other than a full appreciation of the difficulties to be overcome. These were found not to be serious, and in 1569, at the time that this is being written, operations are proceeding on a larger basis, and shad are being hatched artificially at the average rate of five hundred thousand daily, the only obstacle to a greater measure of success being the difficulty in obtaining spawners in the present depleted conditions of the fisheries. A few shad have been hatched in the Merrimack and some other rivers, but on a scale so small as scarcely to merit attention. The future of this undertaking, however, is almost unlimited. Shad, which are one of the best of American fishes, may be raised by hundreds of millions; they are sure to obtain sufficient food in their winter sojourn in the ocean; they grow rapidly, and are readily captured. They may be made as abundant as the necessities of the people can require. At present the Hudson River yields only about one million of shad, averaging two pounds each; it may be made to furnish ten, twenty, or a hundred millions, and this species of food may be reduced to the lowest price that will pay the expense of handling and tending the nets. No country in the world has so good a prospect of suscess in pisciculture as the United States possess in breeding shad. Under SALMON, Salmo salar.—It is doubtful whether salmon were ever found in any of the rivers of the United States which lie to the southward of the Connecticut. Tradition is so unreliable, and the names given to fish by the primitive settlers so undescriptive, that no positive conclusion can be arrived at. It is, however, certain that they are now effectually shut out from all such waters by dams and nets. They are totally extinct everywhere in the United States, except in few rivers in Maine, where they are nearly so. Under these circumstances, their artificial cultivation is of doubtful expediency. The only attempt that has been made is that of the introduction of salmon into the Merrimack, a river in which they had been unknown for many years. the auspices of the New England commissioners of fisheries, the ora were obtained from Canada, where they had been impregnated to the number of seventy thousand, and were carried to the neighborhood of the river, and placed in hatching boxes. Many of the eggs hatched, and there are now in this river four or five thousand young salmon fry, ready to go down to the sea, and destined in time, even without further care, to repeople the Merrimack with these fine and expensive fish. Such a result, under cireninstances that were far from auspicious, is certainly encouraging, and may lead to something further in that or adjacent streams. At present our salmon are principally imported from Canada at a yearly cost to our people of millions of dollars. Decided efforts are being made by the commissioners of Maine to restore the numerous salmon rivers of that State to their former productiveness, but so numerous are the dams, and so depleted the streams, that this must necessarily be a work of time. However, the dams are largely saw-mill dams, and as the forests are cleared away, these become less valuable, and may be removed at less expense, or, as they are rarely high, fish-passes may be constructed over them at moderate cost. The two largest salmon rivers of Maine are the Penobscot and Kennebec; the former yields eight thousand salmon, and the latter a thousand, although they are both streams of sufficient volume, and endowed with other requisites, to produce hundreds of thousands of these fish. The only kind of net now found to be remunerative in either the Penobscot or Kennebec is the pound or fyke, and there are one hundred and eighty-three of these on the former. The commissioners of Maine have computed that, previous to the year 1836, when an impassable dam was built across the Penobscot, this river yielded one hundred and fifty thousand salmon and two millions of shad. The State of Massachusetts has passed the necessary legislation to open the Connecticut River to the passage of these fish. An impassable dam at Holyoke at present obstructs their migration, and the owners have resisted all attempts to build fish-ways over it. Of course, therefore, no practical steps have been taken, although the river is naturally one of the finest salmon streams of America, and can be made so again. It undoubtedly at one time yielded an immense number of salmon. TROUT, Salmo fontinalis.-I believe that ours is the only country in the world where trout-breeding has been made a business, and has proved a successful financial speculation. Here it has been undertaken extensively, and has yielded a large profit. It is properly a matter purely of private interest, the fish, when hatched, being confined in preserved waters, and the State officers have taken no part in it. There are now from twenty to thirty establishments which raise trout, and impregnate trout ora, for the purpose of selling them. One at Charlestown, Vermont, under the charge of Mr. Livingston Stone, which is not merely hatching trout, but has lately introduced the ora of salmon; another, belonging to Mr. Green, and established at Mumford, where, during the season, ten thousand trout are hatched daily. Others, by Wm. H. Furman, of Maspeth, Long Island; by Mr. Kellog, of Hartford, Connecticut; Stephen H. Ainsworth, of West Bloomfield, New York; Aaron S. Vail, of Smithtown, Long Island; Judge Tilden, of Lockport, New York; Thaddeus Norris, the eminent writer on fishing and fish culture, at Asbury, New Jersey; P. H. Christie, of Clove, Dutchess County, New York; Jeremiah Comfort, Spring Mills, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania; Benjamin Kilburn, of Littleton, New Hampshire, and many more. These are conducted solely for the pecuniary profit which they yield; and, in addition to these, there are hundreds if not thousands of individuals who have raised and are raising trout for the table; and a very considerable addition has been made to the food-supply of the country by these means. Private ponds are becoming valuable as preserves, and the rights of fishing are, in some localities, sold for high prices, some of these ponds being sustained by artificial breeding. Trout raising is now followed with the same certainty, and as much like a business as raising sheep, and so long as the price remains as high as it is at present, it will be equally remunerative. It is probable that trout breeding will be greatly extended, and that all suitable waters in the more densely populated States will soon be devoted to the use of this the most costly of our fish, which sells for about one dollar a pound during their season. Our en WHITEFISH, Coregonus albus.-Next in importance to the shad, as a food resource of the people, is the whitefish of our lakes. It is a coregonus, a, very distinct tribe in the great family of the Salmonida; and, while it resembles both the salmon and trout in certain particulars, is entirely distinct in others. It has the silver sides and defined scales of the salmon; it has the second dorsal fin adipose, as in the entire group; but, on the other hand, it has a small mouth, with no perceptible teeth on the lips—a glaring contrast to the well-armed jaws of its predatory cousins. Its habits are entirely distincfive. It does not prey on other fish, but lives on shell-fish and marine plantsmainly on the latter. It is an important article of food to all classes who live near the great fresh-water lakes. It is taken in large numbers from these, and furnishes not only a cheap and healthy diet, but is also an important article of commerce. tire community are deeply interested in the attempt to keep up the supply of this valuable and delicious fish, which has been rapidly diminishing under the persistent persecution to which it is subjected. It is found in all the chain of great lakes, including Lake Ontario. Their numbers have been seriously reduced, and, subject as they are to redoubled attacks, there is much danger of their total annihilation if they are not either protected or propagated. The whitefish may be introduced into many lakes where they are not at present found. In some instances they have made their way through our canals into the lakes and streams of the interior of the State of New York. They require cool, fresh, clear water, and would seem to be adapted to most of our northern inland lakes that furnish no proper spawning-grounds for trout. Their eggs, like those of the trout, are slow to hatch, and are readily transported. In the fall of the year 1868 the artificial culture of whitefish was commenced under the auspices of the commissioners of the State of New York; a quantity of spawn was obtained and submitted to various courses of treatment. The most successful plan was to manage it in the same way as the ora of trout-to put it in hatching troughs, which are twentyfour feet long, with an inclination of three inches, and which are divided by bars across, two inches high, with gravel laid in the compartments, one and one-half inches deep, so that the depth of water shall be only half an inch. The eggs are heavy, and sink instantly in the water. In thirteen days the fish were visible in the eggs 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 hatched in about the same time as trout, and even if kept in wet moss their development was found to progress the same as if they were in water of a similar temperature. Only five or six females were stripped, and some 200,000 eggs obtained, being about 10,000 eggs to the pound of their weight. These were placed in damp moss as soon as impregnated, and carried in a light spring wagon over country roads seven miles, then by railroad twenty-five miles the same day. They were then placed in water under various conditions and at various temperatures. They hatched by the 23d day of February, 1869, even those eggs which were kept in moss producing healthy and lively fish. One curious difference, however, was observed between them and trout. The fry of the latter carry the umbilical sac for about thirty days; whereas, with the young whitefish, it was absorbed in three or four days. After that time they required food, which was furnished to them by suspending a piece of moss taken from a neighboring brook in the trough. Some of the fry commenced feeding at once, and the food was plainly seen through their translucent sides passing into their stomachs. Thus, it will be seen that the first attempt to hatch whitefish resulted encouragingly. The commissioners of fisheries confidently expect hereafter to breed them on a large scale. These fish only seek the shallow portions of the lakes in the spawning season, and pass most of the year in the deep water. They cannot, therefore, be kept in a |