be very considerably reduced by artificial means, so that a very
fair proportion of the eggs deposited by the female fish will not only
be hatched out successfully, but the little fish will reach the smolt
stage safely and have a good chance of reaching the sea. How successful
artificial intervention may be has been proved over and over again in
the United States and in Canada. In the case of more than one river in
Canada, the artificial propagation and protection of salmon has resulted
in what is apparently the actual manufacture of a salmon river,
yielding an annual haul of fish far beyond anything known in Europe,
from a river which before yielded no salmon, or hardly any.

These operations, carried out by the State, were of course far beyond
anything which could be undertaken by the amateur, but I am sure that if
several riparian owners on a salmon river carried on artificial hatching
and rearing operations for several seasons, a marked increase in the
number of fish in the river would ensue. The objection of most people to
this course is that it is unfortunately only too apparent that they are
benefiting chiefly, not the rod fisherman, but the netsman at the mouth
of the river.

The different artificial means used to help nature in producing a good
head of salmon in a river vary chiefly in the amount of the help given
by each. It will suffice to say that the best is that which provides for
the protection and feeding of the young fish till it is ready to take
its first journey to the sea. The reason of this is obvious, as every
day passed in safety is a day gained, both in strength and in power of
self-preservation.

Though it is possible to purchase a certain number of salmon ova, this
is not at all a satisfactory way of obtaining them. To begin with, it is
impossible to get them in sufficient numbers to carry out operations on
a large enough scale. Salmon ova are also expensive; and it is no use
working with less than half a million in several stations if the river
is of any size. It is advisable that the ova should be obtained from the
fish. This may be done either by collecting the ova deposited by the
fish in the spawning beds or from the gravid females. The latter course
necessitates the ripe female and male fish being caught and artificially
spawned. As in nature, at best but a comparatively small percentage of
the ova are impregnated, and by artificial spawning over ninety per
cent. of them may be successf