THE PROGRESS OF PISCICULTURE.
Of late years, no feature of fishery economy has excited more attention than the progress we have been making in what is called ‘Pisciculture.’ Fish-eggs are now a common article of commerce—the sales of which, and the prices at which they can be purchased, being as regularly advertised as any other kind of goods. This is a fact which, a century ago, might have been looked upon by our forefathers as something more than wonderful. Such commerce in all probability would have been stigmatised as impious, as a something ‘flying in the face of Providence.’
But in another country there was buying and selling of fish-eggs more than a thousand years ago. The ingenious Chinese people had discovered the philosophy which underlies fish-culture, as well as the best modes of increasing their supplies of fish, long before any European nation had dreamt of taking action in the matter. A few years ago, a party of fisher-folks from the Celestial Empire, on a visit to Europe, were exceedingly astonished at the prices they had to pay for the fish they were so fond of eating. They explained that in China any person might purchase for a very small sum as much as might serve a family for a week’s food. They also mentioned that some fishes which we reject, such as the octopus, were much esteemed by the Chinese, who cooked them carefully, and partook of them with great relish. The capture of the octopus, indeed, forms one of the chief fishing industries of China, these sea-monsters being taken in enormous numbers at some of the Chinese fishing stations, notably at Swatow. They are preserved by being dried in the sun; and then, after being packed in tubs, they are distributed to the consuming centres of the country. In the inland districts of China there are also to be found numerous fishponds, where supplies of the more popular sorts of fish are kept, and fed for the market. These are grown from ova generally bought from dealers, who procure supplies of eggs from some of the large rivers of the country. The infant fish, it may be mentioned, are as carefully tended and fed as if they were a flock of turkeys in the yard of a Norfolk farmer. In the opinion of the Chinese fishermen, who were interviewed by the industrious Frank Buckland, hundreds of thousands of fish annually die of starvation; and if means could be adopted for the feeding of tender fry, fish of all kinds would become more plentiful than at present, and we would obtain them at a cheaper rate. In China, the yolks of hens’ eggs are thrown into the rivers and ponds, that kind of food being greedily devoured by the young fish.
It has long been known to those interested in the economy of our fisheries, that only a very small percentage of the ova of our chief food-fishes comes to maturity, while of the fish actually hatched, a very small percentage reaches our tables for food-uses; hence the desire which has arisen to augment the supplies by means of pisciculture. In the case of a fish like the salmon, every individual of that species (Salmo salar) which can be brought to market is certain, even when prices are low, of a ready sale at something like a shilling per pound-weight; and it is not, therefore, to be wondered at that the proprietor of a stretch of salmon-water should be zealous about the increase of his stock of fish. A quarter of a century since, the salmon-fishery owners of the river Tay in Scotland, impressed with the possibilities of pisciculture, had a suite of salmon-nurseries constructed at Stormontfield, where they have annually hatched a very large number of eggs, and where they feed and protect the young fish till they are ready to migrate to the sea, able to fight their own battle of life. This may be said to be the earliest and longest sustained piscicultural effort of a commercial kind made in Great Britain, an example which was followed on other rivers. The chief salmon-fisheries of Scotland being held as private property, are, of course, more favourably situated, in regard to fish-culture, than salmon-fisheries which are open to the public, and which, in a sense, are the property of no person in particular. These latter must be left in the hands of mother Nature. The salmon, however, being an animal of great commercial value, is so coveted at all seasons of the year, both by persons who have a legal right to such property, and by persons who have no right, that such fisheries have a tendency to become barren of breeding-stock; for although each female yields on the average as many as twenty thousand eggs, extremely few of these ever reach maturity; hence, it has come about that many proprietors are resorting to the piscicultural process of increasing their supplies.
But the chief feature of the pisciculture of the period is that ‘fisheries’ are now being worked quite independently of any particular river. There is, for example, the Howietoun fishery, near Stirling, which has been ‘invented,’ as we may say, by that piscatorial giant, Sir James Gibson-Maitland. From this establishment, the eggs of fish, particularly trout, and more especially Loch Leven trout, are annually distributed in hundreds of thousands. 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. In the course of the last three summers, several Scottish lakes have had their fish-stores replenished by means of drafts on the piscicultural bank, which is always open at the Howietoun ‘fishery.’ The distance to which ova or tender young fish require to be transported offers no obstacle to this new development of fish-commerce; thousands of infantile fish were brought from Russia to Edinburgh with perfect safety on the occasion of the Fishery Exhibition held in that city. The loss in transit was not more, we believe, than two per cent.
It may prove interesting to state the prices which are charged usually for ova and young fish. A sample lot of eyed ova of the American brook trout, to the extent of one thousand, may be obtained for thirty shillings; and for ten shillings less, a thousand eggs of the Loch Leven trout, or the common trout of the country, may be purchased. For stock supplies, a box containing fifteen thousand partially eyed ova of S. fontinalis (American) may be had for ten pounds. The other varieties mentioned are cheaper by fifty shillings for the same number. Fry of the same, in lots of not fewer than five thousand, range from seven pounds ten shillings to five pounds. Yearlings are of course dearer, and cost from fifteen and ten pounds respectively per thousand. Ten millions of trout ova are now hatched every year at the Howietoun fishery.
The fecundity of all kinds of fish is enormous. A very small trout will be found to contain one thousand eggs; a female salmon will yield on the average eight hundred ova for each pound of her weight; and if even a fifth part of the eggs of our food-fishes were destined to arrive at maturity, there would be no necessity for resorting to pisciculture in order to augment our fish commissariat. But even in America, where most kinds of fish were at one period almost over-abundant, artificial breeding is now necessary in order to keep up the supplies. In the United States, fish-culture has been resorted to on a gigantic scale, not only as regards the salmon, but also in connection with various sea-fishes, many hundred millions of eggs of which are annually collected and hatched; the young fry being forwarded to waters which require to be restocked. Apparatus of a proper description for the hatching of sea-fish has been constructed, and is found to work admirably. Some of these inventions were shown last year in the American department of the International Fishery Exhibition, where they were much admired by persons who feel interested in the proper development of our fishery resources. In the United States, the art of pisciculture has been studied with rare patience and industry, the fish-breeders thinking it no out-of-the-way feat to transplant three or four millions of young salmon in the course of a season. In dealing with the shad, the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries have been able to distribute the young of that fish by tens of millions per annum; the loss in the hatching of eggs and in the transmission of the animal being very small.
Some writers and lecturers on the natural and economic history of our food-fishes have asserted that no possible demand can lead to their extermination or to any permanent falling-off in the supplies; but the economy of the American fisheries tends to disprove that theory. In the seas which surround the United States, certain fishes would soon become very scarce, were the supplies not augmented each season by the aid of the pisciculturists. The fruitfulness of the cod is really wonderful, individuals of that family having been taken with from five to nine millions of eggs in their ovaries. The fecundity of the common herring, too, has often proved a theme of wonder. That an animal only weighing a few ounces should be able to perpetuate its kind at the rate of thirty thousand, is indeed remarkable. But fruitful in reproductive power as these and other fishes undoubtedly are, it has been prophesied by cautious writers, that by over-fishing, the supplies may in time become so exhausted as to require the aid of the pisciculturist. If so, we believe the mode of action which has been found to work so well in the American seas will be the best to follow. No plan of inclosed sea-ponds, however large they might be, will meet the case; the fish-eggs will require to be hatched in floating cylinders specially constructed for the purpose, so as to admit of the eggs being always under the influence of the sea-water, and at the same time exposed to the eye of skilled watchers. It is believed by persons well qualified to judge, that the eggs of our more valuable sea-fishes may in the way indicated be dealt with in almost incredible numbers. We have only to remember that twenty females of the cod family will yield at least one hundred millions of eggs, to see that the possibilities of pisciculture might extend far beyond anything indicated in the foregoing remarks.
In resuscitating their exhausted oyster-beds, the French people have during the last twenty years worked wonders; they have been able to reproduce that favourite shell-fish year after year in quantities that would appear fabulous if they could be enumerated in figures. Pisciculture was understood in France long before it was thought of as a means of aiding natural production in America; but our children of the States—to use a favourite phrase of their own—now ‘lick all creation’ in the ways and means of replenishing river and sea with their finny denizens.