Aquaculture

“ As to how many fish a given extent of water will support, there are many different opinions. Much, undoubtedly, will depend on the soil which surrounds the ponds, whether or not it yields a supply of food of any kind, and also on the stream employed to supply the water. The flavour of a fish, we may say, depends entirely on the kind of food it obtains; and when more fishes are placed in a piece of water than there is food for, they will either equalise the supply by turning cannibals, or remain lank and flavourless. ”

“ The book is chiefly concerned with fisheries for edible fish. I have included a chapter on whale fisheries, since whale oil is now used largely in the manufacture of such food substances as lard substitute and margarine. No account of seal “fishing” is included, as seals are not fished but are generally hunted on shore. I have not included fisheries for pearls, sponges or seaweed. To its cost the nation knows little of the methods and organization and achievements of the Fishing Industry. ”

“ You must have other waters besides stews, to assist in the disposition of the fish; for laying a pond in that great order dry, as I propose, once in every year, there will be a great quantity of fish to be disposed; so that you must have a sufficient quantity of waters to receive when you abound, and to recruit when you want. The stews will carry sixty, seventy, or eighty carps apiece, supposing you spend continually out of them; so other waters will receive their proportion, by sending this way and that the stock of fish, you will preserve all, and know where to find them again. ”

“ Strike out all the plants from existence, and we should, poisoned by our own breath, die in heaps, with other animals; while, if all the animals could, at one blow, be swept away from the earth into space, the plants would be destroyed by the want of carbon. And now the aquarium, which, properly speaking, is an artificial sea, or lake, possessing all the conditions necessary to the maintenance of aquatic life, both animal and vegetable, beautifully illustrates this truth. Who has not observed that fish, confined in water without plants, quickly die, unless the water be repeatedly changed? ”

“ The first thing to be done is to give the proprietors on the upper part of the river such an interest in the fisheries as will make them anxious about the preservation of the fish in the spawning season; and to accomplish so desirable an object no one ought to fish or keep a net stretched across a river for more than twelve hours each day, or from sunrise to sunset; and every mill-owner ought to be compelled to facilitate the passage of the fish over his weir by every means consistent with the proper supply of water to his wheels. ”

“ Fish lie sadly in the gutters. The scales of fish glitter on the pavements. A little vigorous swimming through the outlying fisheries brings you to the actual market, which is even more wonderful. Imagine a place like Covent Garden, and nearly as big, but entirely devoted to fish. In the place of those enchanting perspectives of flower-stalls, imagine enormous regiments of fish-stalls, paraded in close order and groaning with halibut and conger-eel, with whiting and lobsters and huge crabs. Round these stalls the wholesale dealers wade ankle-deep in fish. ”

“ Passing behind the Conservatory and down the Eastern Arcade--in which will be arranged algæ, sponges, mollusca, star-fish, worms used for bait, insects which destroy spawn or which serve as food for fish, etc.--on turning to the left, we find ourselves in the fish market, which will probably vie with the aquaria on the other side in attracting popular attention. This model Billingsgate is to be divided into two parts, the one for the sale of fresh, the other of dried and cured fish. ”

“ A stream or pond will support but a limited number of fish, the number depending on the supply of natural food for both young and mature. By the supply of food on one hand, and the natural enemies of the fish on the other, a certain balance is maintained which if disturbed by, say, overfishing one season, will be restored by natural laws the next. ”

“ The upper ponds must be used for breeding the fish—that is, as nurseries for the young, from which, in due time, to supply the larger water. Of the fry, a fair allowance will be twenty-five to the square rood, and the largest of these should be let out in the course of two years, and their places supplied by others. In due time the new-made ponds will be filled with breeding-fish, and the best way, then, is to let nature have full swing; for if food, either natural or artificial, be not abundant, the supply will become self-regulating. ”

“ It is a very free feeder, and grows more rapidly than our trout; great care must therefore be taken to give it plenty of food. I would draw my readers' attention particularly to this fact as to the feeding and quick-growing qualities of the rainbow, for they make it, if possible, even more necessary that the water into which they are turned should contain a good supply of food than it was in the case of the common trout; though even in the case of the common trout, this is quite the most important consideration in stocking a water with fish. ”

“ When a pond is made for this purpose, and filled with water, the owner goes to market, and buys as many young store-fish as his pond can conveniently hold; this he can easily do, as almost all their fish are brought to market alive. Placed in the stew, they are regularly fed morning and evening, or as often as the feeder finds it necessary; their food is chiefly boiled rice, to which is added, the blood of any animals they may kill, wash from their stewing-pots and dishes, &c., indeed any animal offal or vegetable matter which the fish will eat. ”

“ If the feeding and breeding of this fish were more understood and practised, the advantages resulting would be very great; and a fish pond would become as valuable an article as a garden. The gentleman who has land in his own hands, may, besides furnishing his own table and supplying his friends, become a source of much profit in money, and very considerable advantage to his lands at the same time, so as to make it produce more than by any other employment whatever. ”

“ If the soil about the waters be any thing moorish, it may be planted with osiers, which yield a certain yearly crop.
4. The feed of the pond when laid dry, or the corn, that is, oats, which you may have upon the bottom, though mere mud, is very considerable. This hath been touched before.
5. You will invite all manner of help to your fishing, by the fry given among those who assist you; and though you pay them, they will expect fish; and with expectations of carrying home a dish of fresh fish, men will work in wet and dirt, to a wonder, without other pay. ”

“ A hundred streams pour their contents into the great lake which, from its enormous size and depth, retaining the temperature of winter through the summer months, empties its clear, cold, transparent{40} waters into the river Ste. Marie. Not producing a large variety of fish, those that dwell in its bosom are the finest of their species. The speckled trout, the Mackinaw salmon, and the black bass are large and vigorous; sturgeons are plentiful, although valueless except as an article of food; and the white fish are the daintiest fresh-water fish in the world. ”

“ If the land is thoroughly cultivated the same may be said of the waters, for in sea, river, lake, or pond, wherever water rests or flows, there is no device that ingenuity can conceive that is not used for the capture of fish, which enters largely into the food of 42 the people; and no cultivation is more intensive than pisciculture, a fishpond being more valuable than ten times its area of cultivated land. ”

“ From Howietoun, and from some other places as well, gentlemen can stock their ponds or other ornamental water with fecundated ova in a certain state of forwardness; or they can procure, for a definite sum of money, fish of all ages from tiny fry to active yearlings, or well grown two-year olds! Sporting-waters which have been overfished can be easily replenished by procuring a few thousand eggs or yearlings; while angling clubs which rent a loch or important stream can, at a very small cost, keep up the supplies, whether of trout or salmon. ”

“ On every hike or tramp carry a wide-mouthed bottle for specimens and a piece of rubber cloth in which to bring home water plants. Fish can be carried wrapped in damp moss for hours and will be found well and lively when put in the aquarium.
Fish Food
Fish require very little food other than the minute creatures that develop in the water.
The dealers supply proper foods for aquaria, or you can prepare your own. Fine vermicelli is good for gold fish, scraped lean beef is just what the sunfish and Paradise fish want. Ant eggs suit many fish, and powdered dog biscuit will fill many mouths. ”

“ THE VEGETATION OF THE MARINE AQUARIUM. As the forest must be planted before its denizens can luxuriate in its shades, so the submarine shrubbery of the Aquarium must be perfected before the aquatic animals can be introduced. For it has been shown, in tracing the history of the experiments which resulted in the establishment of the principles that regulate the formation of Aquaria, that it is by plants only that a supply of oxygen can be kept up, sufficient for the health and existence of all forms of animal life beneath the water. ”

“ If you project many stews, or other ponds to be sunk right down about the same time, you will have great advantage by the clay you take out of them, which will be much more than is necessary for the bed, and that may fortify the bed, by being pressed down by the tumbrels on each side of it; and so the bank will be very much confirmed, and it will also save breaking of ground within the pond, which is a great advantage in the feed of the fish. ”

“ As I told you, fish eat fish and insects and crabs and such living things. Some few are feeders on vegetables. Fish will also devour almost anything that is thrown into the water for them. Did you ever feed fish in a pond with bread and worms?
Carp will hurry to the top of the water to get food that they have learned to look for when people come near. Fish of a kind often keep together and feed together. You know in a stream there may be some places where you will catch only trout, or only bullheads. ”

“ You can balance your aquarium by plenty of plants. As they grow they give off oxygen which purifies the water and is breathed by the fish. The water need not be changed for years. The swamps and slow streams afford great numbers of plants. If you know the plants get pond weeds, Canadian water weed, ludwigia, willow moss, or tape grass. ”

“ How to bring Fish, if any in the Pond or River, to the place you desire.
Boyl clean Barly in Water till it bursts, with Licorice, and a little Mummy; add some Honey and beat them together in a Mortar into a stiff Paste, and boyl about the quantity of a Wall-nut of this Paste with a quart of Barly till it grows Glutenous, and then lay it for a ground bait, and the Fish will flock about it from all parts.
To make worms for Baits come out of the Ground. ”

“ Many species of fish, as the Salmon, Smelt, and others, in forsaking the deep water, and approaching a suitable spawning station, leave the sea altogether for a time, ascend the rivers and their tributary streams, and, having deposited their eggs, return again to their usual haunts. Even a certain species of fish, inhabiting lakes, as the Roach, betake themselves to the tributary streams, as the most suitable places for spawning. ”

“ The government maintains stations which are regularly engaged in hatching fish, keeping them until the greatest danger of their being destroyed is past, and then placing them in various streams all over the country. These fish are always of good food varieties, and are carefully selected to insure the kind best suited to the stream, as to whether it is warm or cold, deep or shallow, clear or muddy, fresh or salt, slow and placid, or swift and turbulent, for each kind of stream has certain varieties of fish that are especially adapted to it. ”

“ There is a growing market for the young bass or fingerlings to stock streams and ponds. The relation between the producer of stock fish and those who expect to raise bass of a marketable size is about the same as exists between the professional seed grower and the market gardener. It is much better for the small farmer who has or can make an artificial pond to buy his fingerlings from the professional breeder, who has facilities which are too elaborate to be duplicated on a small scale. ”

“ It is a common practice, too, among the fish growers, to fertilize the ponds, and in case a foot path leads alongside, screens are built over the water to provide accommodation for travelers. Fish reared in the better fertilized ponds bring a higher price in the market. ”

“ Nevertheless, as every water hath a sundry mixture, and therefore is not stored with every kind, so there is almost no house, even of the meanest boors, which hath not one or more ponds or holes made for reservation of water unstored with some of them, as with tench, carp, bream, roach, dace, eels, or such like as will live and breed together. Certes it is not possible for me to deliver the names of all such kinds of fishes as our rivers are found to bear ”

“ These are scavengers, for the clam feeds upon organisms that float in the water, while the snails eat the green scum that grows on the glass.
The other aquarium specimens may now be put in. One fish about three inches long to a gallon of water is about the right proportion. When there is a sufficient quantity of plant life to keep the water properly oxygenated and enough animal life to supply the carbon dioxide necessary to keep the plants growing well, the aquarium is said to be balanced. ”