To those who knew personally, as the writer did, the strong, rugged, gray-headed and grizly-bearded man, whose appearance seemed to indicate a longer life of usefulness, the announcement came like a shock. But it had been known to others for some months that the grand old “Father of Fishes,” as he was sometimes called, was lying hopelessly ill, and that his precious charges at Caledonia Springs—the little fishes—would know him no more. Mr. Green had from his early youth the tastes of the sportsman, and, with the proper education, would have made a great naturalist. He had great powers of observation; even in ascertaining such minutiæ as whether fishes can hear.
In 1864 Mr. Green bought a piece of property at Caledonia Springs, near Rochester, and his success in raising trout there was so great as to lead many others to embark in the business in different parts of the State. Dr. Theodatus Garlick had preceded him in the successful raising of trout, but not to a sufficient extent to detract from Mr. Green’s fame as a great trout breeder.
As a pisciculturist, however, Mr. Green will be best remembered for his discovery that the eggs of certain sea fishes, particularly the shad, require a continuous motion of the water to prevent the eggs from adhering to each other. The floating shad-box which bears his name, was the result of this discovery. Although it was superseded by the invention of Mr. Fred Mather, and later by the hatching jar of Colonel McDonald, Fish Commissioner of the United States, the credit of the discovery belongs to Mr. Green. Mr. Green was at one time Fish Commissioner of the State, with the Hon. Horatio Seymour and the Hon. R. B. Roosevelt. Of late years, however, he had been Superintendent of the State Fish Hatchery at Caledonia Springs.
He was a voluminous writer on the subject of fishes. He edited the Angler’s column of the American Angler, and wrote, in conjunction with Mr. Roosevelt, a charming little book called “Fish Hatching and Fish Catching.”
F. ENDICOTT.
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YACHT RACING RESULTS.
WHETHER yachting is an expensive pastime or not, it certainly is popular and growing in favor every year. The waning season of 1888 shows a marked increase in the American pleasure fleet over that of 1887, with a proportionate number of new yacht owners—not all owners of new yachts, however, for there are plenty of old ones fast enough and shapely enough to satisfy the average business man, who does not care to order a new boat. So versatile are our yacht designers and builders of the present day, that one can have his order filled at short notice for a sloop or schooner, while just as fine a cutter of the most pronounced type may be had without crossing the Atlantic.
Although the first half of the season gave us but little racing worth chronicling, the latter half, beginning with the New York Yacht Club’s cruise, gave promise of some lively work, and, what is better, some surprising results.
It is an acknowledged fact among yachtsmen who witnessed the races for the Martha’s Vineyard cups, and the two following, where the schooners Sea Fox, Sachem and Grayling did such remarkably close sailing, that it was the finest schooner racing for the distance ever seen in these waters. Moreover, the victory of the old cutter Bedouin over the new sloop Katrina has brought the “keel or centreboard, cutter or sloop” question to the front again, with odds a good deal in favor of the cutter.