Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

LUND, JACOBl, REMY 293success. In France little or nothing was done, except byQuatrefages, till we reach the two peasants, Remy and Gehin,whose labours laid firm the foundation on which all subsequentPisciculturists have built.In 1849 the Academy of Sciences learned that a prize hadbeen granted in 1845 by the Society of the Vosges to twofishermen of La Bresse, Remy and Gehin, for having fertilisedand artificially hatched eggs from trout, and for having raisedsome five to six thousand trout from one to three years old,which continued to thrive in the waters in which they wereconfined.On investigation by the Academy, it was found that Remyand Gehin (who came in later)based entirely on their own observations (forhad been led from conclusions" they are quiteunlettered and ignorant of the progress of the Natural Sciences ")to employ with success methods rather similar, but superior,to those of Jacobi.They had enormously decreased the high mortality by theirgreatest and probably unique achievement, i.e. provision forthe fry of a natural food. This was produced by the simultaneousrearing of a smaller and non-cannibal species, and bythe collection in the enclosed streams or made waterwaysinto which the young trout were liberated of hundreds offrogs, whose spawn afforded an excellent subsistence.Jacobi's and Remy's discovery was the parent of ourmodern Pisciculture. The gear and apparatus, especially inAmerica, have been transformed. The methods of stripping,of hatching, of feeding are enormously improved, with mortalityin eggs and fry incredibly reduced.From this account of their discoveries and from the natureof the methods now in use, it is obvious that the suggestionof Badham and others that the method of breeding fishemployed by modern Pisciculturists was practically that ofthe Romans must go by the board.