PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

visions are also made for encouraging oyster culture. Prince Edward Island leads the Canadian provinces in production of oysters. During one-quarter of a century past over a million barrels of oysters were taken from Canadian waters, more than half of which came from Prince Edward Island. The lux- urious Romans spent enormous sums on their fish ponds and oyster beds. It is of high national importance and will be an im- mense means of securing additional suste- nance for the teeming millions of the world.

It has been claimed that a French peasant named Reamy discovered the process of hatching fish eggs. But it is believed that he simply collected and transplanted eggs that had been naturally impregnated. France, however, erected the first fish breeding estab- lishment for practical purposes. The real father of fish culture was Jacobi, a German. About 1741 he took eggs and milt from

_ trout by hand and fertilized them artificially. King George III of England granted him a life pension for this discovery. John Shaw in 1837 rediscovered the process and was the first to fecundate the eggs of salmon in Scot- land. ‘ In 1850 establishments on the River Tay commenced operating with marked suc- cess. Norway began the same year.

Garlic was the father of fish culture in America. He impregnated eggs of trout and hatched them in 1854. The first attempt to breed salmon in America was in 1864. The eggs were obtained in Europe and hatched in New York. The first successful attempt to hatch codfish was made in Norway in 1865.

The shad in the Hudson river in 1869 were worth $7,000 at a price of seventy-five cents each. In 1895 by culture it amounted to over one hundred and eighty-four thou-

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sand dollars at a price of ten and twenty cents each. This is an illustration of the progress made and the benefit to the con- sumer in a reduced price. A codfish pro-. duces as many as nine million eggs at one time and the culture of this fish artificially in Prince Edward Island is worthy of consid~ eration. ‘

In 1863 Canada commenced public fish culture with one hatchery at Newcastle, Lake Ontario, under an eminent fish-culturist, the late Samuel Wilmot. His successor, Prof. Prince, is a close student of pisciculture. Now there are twenty—four hatcheries pro- ducing about seven hundred million fry yearly. Judicious close seasons and reason- able regulations should be backed up by public opinion. ,

The lobster fishing has become worth half a million dollars a year, giving employ- ment to over two thousand persons. A hatchery has been erected in 1903 at the Block House with capacity for an output of one hundred million fry each year. In a year or two more the result of this distribu- tion of young lobsters around our coasts must greatly aid in the future production. The regulation prohibiting fishing except about three months of the year must tend to conserve this valuable shell—fish industry.

A salmon and trout hatchery is estab- lished at Kelly’s Pond, Southport, with ca- pacity for one million eggs. There is great need of development along these lines in our numerous rivers, only a few hundred dollars’ worth of salmon now being secured and a few thousand dollars’ worth of trout.

The herring fishery, which has been some years of the value of almost a hundred thousand dollars, is receiving attention. Five bait freezers are equipped to furnish