Progress of the Science of Fish Culture
Dublin Core
Title
Progress of the Science of Fish Culture
Creator
F.
Source
http://addison.vt.edu/record=b1775388~S1
Publisher
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Date
August 1876
Contributor
Andrew Kulak, Andrew Wimbish
Rights
Permission to publish images from The Gray Jacket must be obtained from Special Collections, Virginia Tech.
Format
Text
Language
English
Type
Essay
Identifier
LD5655.V8 L4, ser.1, v.2, no.1 (August 1876), p.2
Coverage
Blacksburg, Va
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
To those sceptics who consider Fish Culture to be a humbug, born of a few days, I would say that before the discovery of America, it was a recognized and practiced art in the older countries. The earlier histories of that wonderful people, the Chinese, state that about 2100 B. C., they had laws regulating the time at which fish spawn should be taken. Father Herald, a Jesuit Missionary, writing a history of China in the year 1735, states that in the month of May, mats and hurdles are placed across the current of the rivers extending for nine or ten leagues, leaving only an opening sufficiently wide for the passage of vessels. The fish spawn is caught upon these mats, placed in vessels of water and sold to the merchants who flock from all parts of the Empire. The reports of modern travelers corroborate this statement. Thus to these people so popularity despised is due the discovery of this valuable art. Since then different men at different times, have discovered and practised the same. At one time it would be discovered and practiced in one place, until imigration would so thin the population as to cause the art to die and be forgotten, afterwards the same would happen elsewhere. In proof of this, Baron Mongaudry states that whilst hunting amongst the musty archives of the Abby Reome, he discovered that a monk of the religious order, Dom Binchori, in the fourteenth century discovered and practiced a method of hatching, similar to that still pursued in some of our larger trout farms.
Letters written by John Smith, of England, in the earlier settlement of Virginia, state that at the spawning season it was impossible to ride across the smaller streams and branches without injuring fish making their way to their favorite breeding grounds. To-day, unless a man be well acquainted with the habits of the animal, he may labor hours without avail ; and it seems remarkable in the face of this fact, to assert that as late as fifty years ago, the amount of fish salted away by many farmers, was as large as their hog crop. Out of this fact grew the establishment of a commission by the Congress of the United States to enquire into the exhausted condition of the fisheries of our country, and suggest means for their renovation. Their report shows that this deplorable fact is due mainly to improper fishing, assisted by dams, pollution from gas factories, paper mills, &c. Then came the question of the remedy. The New England States were the first to attempt a practicable remedy. There, amongst a people proverbially ready and willing to grasp new ideas, the Commissioners were ridiculed and hooted. But with rapid strides, it has, comparatively, gone ahead of every other art to the dignity of a science. Their work has, in less than ten years, reduced the market value of many fish to 4-50ths of its former value. Amongst these people, so pecuniarily blessed, private enterprise has taken the matter in hand, and stock companies, for the raising of fish, are being formed.
Virginia determined not to be the last in a matter of such public good, has created her Fish Commissioners, and made an appropriation to carry on similar work. Though I be no prophet, yet, I predict, that if the Legislature sustain the Commission, the palmy old days of Virginia will come again, and the poorest man in the State will have upon his table, food fit for a king. Men groan and deplore the good, hospitable days that once were, but are no more. They do not examine into the why, but if they would look, it would plainly be seen that the cause, in a large measure, is the scarcity of food. Therefore, I say, sustain and work in harmony with your present Fish Commissioners, and you will have not only your Green's, Mather's and Ainsworth's, but food in abundance. The means whereby to raise our glorious old State out of her "slough of despond," is to give her men work to do and cheap food to sustain them. The latter, I assert, nothing is so able to do as the Fish Commission, and moreover, the people can find no better investment for their money, for without doubt, it will yield an annual return of one hundred per cent.
For the present—enough. At another time I shall write on the evils of dams, pollutions, &c., and as Jean Paul Riteher would say, when winding up a long sentence—and, so hallo!
Yours truly, F.
Letters written by John Smith, of England, in the earlier settlement of Virginia, state that at the spawning season it was impossible to ride across the smaller streams and branches without injuring fish making their way to their favorite breeding grounds. To-day, unless a man be well acquainted with the habits of the animal, he may labor hours without avail ; and it seems remarkable in the face of this fact, to assert that as late as fifty years ago, the amount of fish salted away by many farmers, was as large as their hog crop. Out of this fact grew the establishment of a commission by the Congress of the United States to enquire into the exhausted condition of the fisheries of our country, and suggest means for their renovation. Their report shows that this deplorable fact is due mainly to improper fishing, assisted by dams, pollution from gas factories, paper mills, &c. Then came the question of the remedy. The New England States were the first to attempt a practicable remedy. There, amongst a people proverbially ready and willing to grasp new ideas, the Commissioners were ridiculed and hooted. But with rapid strides, it has, comparatively, gone ahead of every other art to the dignity of a science. Their work has, in less than ten years, reduced the market value of many fish to 4-50ths of its former value. Amongst these people, so pecuniarily blessed, private enterprise has taken the matter in hand, and stock companies, for the raising of fish, are being formed.
Virginia determined not to be the last in a matter of such public good, has created her Fish Commissioners, and made an appropriation to carry on similar work. Though I be no prophet, yet, I predict, that if the Legislature sustain the Commission, the palmy old days of Virginia will come again, and the poorest man in the State will have upon his table, food fit for a king. Men groan and deplore the good, hospitable days that once were, but are no more. They do not examine into the why, but if they would look, it would plainly be seen that the cause, in a large measure, is the scarcity of food. Therefore, I say, sustain and work in harmony with your present Fish Commissioners, and you will have not only your Green's, Mather's and Ainsworth's, but food in abundance. The means whereby to raise our glorious old State out of her "slough of despond," is to give her men work to do and cheap food to sustain them. The latter, I assert, nothing is so able to do as the Fish Commission, and moreover, the people can find no better investment for their money, for without doubt, it will yield an annual return of one hundred per cent.
For the present—enough. At another time I shall write on the evils of dams, pollutions, &c., and as Jean Paul Riteher would say, when winding up a long sentence—and, so hallo!
Yours truly, F.