DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES,

REPORT
OF MR. S. WILMOT, SUPERINTENDENF OF FISH CULTURE FOR
THE DOMINION OF CANADA, FOR THE YEAR 1888.
The Honorable CHARLES H. Tuppxa,
Minister of Marine and Fisheries,
Ottawa4
SIR,—I have the honor to submit herewith the annual report offish-breeding
operations in the Dominion of Canada for the year 1888, together with a general
summary of the work carried on at each of the twelve hatcheries under my super
intendency.
Appended will be found the individual reports containing the transactions Ift
detail, as given by the several officers in charge of each local hatchery in the several
Provinces. In these are related the methods pursued for procuring the suppiles
of parent fish, from which the eggs are obtained to stock the nurseries. In them
will also be found remarks relating to subjects connected with the general interests
of the fisheries, and fish culture, which no doubt will entitle them to a perusal and
consideration.
The several fish-breeding institutions being wide apart in the performance of
their work, reaching from the waters of the Atlantic to the Pacific, and located in all
the Provinces of the Dominion save one, have such an unlimited water area in which
to operate that, it is found very difficult, indeed almost impossible, to supply the
demands that are annually made upon your Department by numerous applicants, for
young fish of various kinds, to replenish waters that have become almost denuded of the
better kinds of fish which formerly inhabited them; and in other cases to introduce
better species into lakes, rivers and streams, to which they were not originally
indigenous.
With the general increase of population, and improvements of all kinds in many
parts of the Dominion, which are continually going on, it has been found that the
fish, especially of the better descriptions are correspondingly decreasing, until at
last it has become a necessity to institute remedial measures to restore them by the
enforcement of judicious laws, for the preservation of the reduced supplies which are
in some cases yet to be found; and by introducing the most approved methods for
recovering this valuable source of food, and wealth to the country, ore it be wholly
lost.
This desideratum has in a large degree been reached by the greater portion
of the civilized governments of the world, by adopting the science of artificial fish cul—
ture, an industry which thus far wherever introduced, and extensively carried on,
has produced most satisfactory results by restoring many waters to their original
standard of fish wealth; and replenishing others with the higher orders of fishes by
the acclimatisation of young fish reared in public fish-breeding institutions.
Whilst nearly all the countries of the Old World are actively engaged in the
art of artificial fish culture, it is found that in America also, the industry has been
entered into with more vigor than elsewhere, and nowhere has the same amount of
effort been put forth to utilize the science of fish culture for resueitating declining
fisheries in the general interests of its inhabitants, than is shown to be the case ii
the United States of America, where by the almost unbounded liberality of the
Federal Government, and by the larger proportion of the individual States of the
Union, this work is generously supported and extensively carried on; and large
sums of money are annually granted from the public treasury for the erection and
maintenance of Federal and States Fish Hatcheries, and for employing professional
experts, who are well versed in ichthyology, and also appointing persons having a
practical knowledge of the wants in each State as Fishery Commissioners, whose