and lakes in accordance with the
instructions issued from the De
partment of Fisheries at Toron
to and Ottawa.
•If the hatchery staffs are to be
held responsible because these
fry and fingerlings have not
grown into adults, they should
have received instructions from
officials “higher up'’ as to how
the task is to be accomplished.
The staffs received no such in
structions, evidently because the
hatchery inspectors and other
superior officers did not them
selves know how to rear finger
lings into adult fish.
Problem is How to Rear Fry Into
Adults
The big problem, therefore, in
fish culture today is not the
the production of more fry. The
problem is to rear such a num
ber of fry and fingerlings to
half-grown or full-grown fish
as will pay for the cost of rim
ing the hatcheries, and in addi
tion, add as many as possible to
the catches of the fishermen.Ac
cording to the Biological Board
it is doubtful whether this has
ever been done in all the sixty
years of hatchery work.
How Is The Problem To 3*e
Solved
No one knows as yet, at any
rate, no one knows in detail, but
the scientific principles to be
employed are all known, and
can be utilized in the solution
by any one who has been proper
ly trained in physics, chemistry
and biology. What is needed first
of all is a second staff of work
ers, separate and distinct from
the hatchery staffs, and to be
known as “field workers.” To
these field workers, the fry, fin
gerlings (3 to 5 inches long)
should be transferred as soon as
they have attained the differ
ent sizes necessary for distribu
tion in streams and lakes of
different sizes.
The necessity for a field stafi
as separate and distinct from a
hatchery staff is readily under
stood when we learn the marked
difference in the kind of work
which the two have to do. For
the various duties of procuring
the parent fish, fertilizing eggs,
depositing the eggs in the hatch
ery troughs, caring for the eggs
until they hatch, feeding the fry
and fingerlings in the hatchery
by superior officers—for the
most of these duties the present
hatchery staff are qualified; but
few if any of them are capable
of taking up the duties of the
field workers without a higher
education.
All that is required in learn
ing the duties of a hatchery
staff is a common school educa
tion. The Maritime hatchery
staffs have no systematic knowl
edge of the sciences except what
was imparted to them in two
short courses of instruction of
less than two weeks each at the
Truro Agricultural College; and
two other short courses of less
than two weeks each at Dal
housie University. Yet with this
limited scientific and common
school education they turned out
vastly more fry and fingerlings
than the Department could rear
into adult fish.
Their work of turning out fry
and fingerlings would be per
fectly satisfactory if that were
all that was required of them.
But as everyone knows, hatching
fry and raising them to finger—
lings and distributing them as
has been done for sixty years
past is only the beginning of fish
culture. When the fate of these
fry and fingerlings was followed
in streams and lakes as Mr. H.
C. White of Aylmer, Ontario,
Mr. J. Roland Hayes of Halifax,
N.S., have done, it was found
that they nearly all perished.
Many of them died because they
lied been placed in unsuitable
water, many more were devour
ed by enemies and even relatives
and probably many were starv
ed.
More Education Needed.
It is at this point—the death
of vast numbers of fry and fin
gerlings that fish culture has
broken down, and it is at this
point, therefore, that the field
workers must begin the work of
saving the lives of fry and fin
gerlings. In order to do this, they
must go to all the streams and
lakes in which fry, fingerlings
distributed, and they must pre
pare these for receiving the fry,
fingerlings and half-grown fish
which the hatchery staffs have
raised.
They (the field workers) must
examine the physical and chem
ichal properties of water which
it is proposed to stock and say
whether the water is suitabie for
the fish or not. They must seine
out the coarse and useless fish
and use their flesh for making
good rations for the fry, finger
lings and half-grown fish which
are being reared in the hatch
eries, nursery ponds, or sections
of streams and lakes from which
all enemy and competitor fish
have been removed.
They must estimate the kind,
approximate the quantity and
location of natural food so that
fry and fingerlings may not be
distributed in streams and lakes
where they may starve. They
must know the kind and loca
tion and approximate number
of competitor and enemy fish.
They must be able to recognize
water plants and water animals
which have intimate food re
lationship to each other and to
fish; just as a farmer recogniz
es the relationshrip of the grains
which he grows on his farm to
the fattening of the animals
which he sells on the market. In
short, the work of the hatchery
staffs is quite different from
that of the field workers. The
former rear fry and fingerlings
but no adult fish; the latter
will rear no fry and fingerlings,
but will aim at rearing them to
adults.
Different duties
Just because the two staffs
have such different duties each
must have a different kind of
scientific and technical educa
tion. As we know the Maritime
hatchery staffs, with the excep
tion of two. the men had only a
public or common school edu
cation with no instruction in the
sciences beyond what a high
school boy of 16 years could
acquire in a few months. On
the other hand, a field worker,
if he is to perform the duties
outlined above, must have had at
least a four years course in the
sciences at a university.
It wras because the hatchery
staffs in Ontario were incapable
of doing accurate and reliable
field work that the Hon. Mr.
McCrea appointed a field work
er (who has had seven years
training in the University of
Toronto) to examine and report
upon the suitability of certain
waters in Ontario which it was
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