the streams of Highland county still exist though in greatly decreased numbers. The causes of this decrease are various. The entire country at its first settlement, at the beginning of the present century, was covered with a dense forest of heavy timber, and every stream was full of drifts of lodged trees and brush carried down by freshets. These drifts interrupting the natural flow, would force new channels, and the result was that nearly all the streams crooked from side to side through their entire valleys, digging immense water caves under the drifts and the roots of standing trees, and excavating vast holes and pools at angles and hill sides. These furnished admirable retreats for all kinds of fish, and ample protection from their natural enemies, as well as the nets and traps of the human race. The first settlers from necessity began to build dams for grain and saw mills, whose ponds also furnished like protection, especially for large fish.

Now mark the difference. The forests are nearly all cleared off; the sun shines and the rain falls upon a bare surface; the springs are consequently lessened in volume, and the rain fall runs rapidly off; the marshes are underdrained; the streams are straightened and confined by levees; the drifts are removed; the mill dams are nearly all abandoned, for steam has taken the place of water power, and the flouring mill is removed from the creek to the village, while the portable saw mill follows the timber. The result is, the mass of water goes off in occasional freshets, sweeping the channels clean and smooth, and subject to very low water at certain periods, so that the streams being shallow and unshaded, the poor fish have a hard time anyway. And now comes the seine, that detestable sneaking exterminator, which in defiance of law and common decency, often in day time, and oftener at night, sweeps the little streams, dragging out everything that has scale or fin, and for every fish fit for eating. leaving hundreds of small fry to perish upon the sand bar, many perhaps just spawned and too small to notice.

Amongst the causes of the decrease of our native fish, this is the most serious, as well as the most outrageous, and I drop it in anger and disgust. In large bodies of water, or in early times when the fish had natural and permanent covers from drifts, etc., the mischief would be comparatively slight, but now, in our small and smooth bottomed streams, in times of low water the seine is simple destruction to all plans for fish culture.

With what fish should our streams be stocked? This is a difficult question. Of course all that are indigenous will thrive and increase if protected. Of these the Miami or black bass stands first as an eatable and game fish; it is found to some extent in every stream I have named, and should receive special attention. It is the same as the black bass of Lake

Erie, modified and I think improved by different food and water. With this fish our streams should be liberally re-stocked, and I would suggest that it should be done with spawn from Lake Erie, on the general idea. of improvement by crossing and change of location.

1st. The rock bass or goggle eye. This is sometimes claimed to be a pond, or at least a still water fish, but it is found in all the streams of the county often in swift water, and in good qualities is equal to the black bass except in size. Spawn of this should be liberally supplied, and perhaps from Lake Erie for the reasons above stated.

2d. Sunfish. Of this we have but one kind, the blue. It is a still water fish, at least compared with the black and rock bass, but is found in all the streams of the county, is an excellent pan fish, specially fitted for artificial ponds, and for the juvenile hook and line is indespensable. I would suggest the introduction of other varieties of this tribe from northern waters, and they would probably thrive here as their habits are about the same. How about the pumpkin seed? I have never seen the little fellow in these parts.

Giving my personal and present impression as to our other native fishes I would shortly say, that I do not favor the pike, because he is too large and too ravenous for our small streams, or the pickerel for the same reasons, with the addition that he is not suited to our waters, and I do not like him any how. The sucker family will take care of themselves, and we shall always have as many as we need. The cat fish are scarcely worth propagating here, and so of eels, alligator gar, etc. As to chubs, silver sides, minnows, et id omne genus, they propagate and grow rapidly, and will keep up their numbers sufficiently to amuse the boys, feed the bass, and furnish bait, unless destroyed by the seine and cocculus indicus, from both which let us pray for a speedy and final deliverance.

As to the introduction of fish not native to our waters, I do not feel competent to speak, and have, therefore, given a full detail of the peculiarities of the streams, so those who are wiser may judge for themselves. I will, however, say that I do not think the brook trout (the choicest of all fresh water fish,) will succeed if turned loose in our streams. They do not live happily with the bass, and their normal habitat is in clear, cold, sandstone water, instead of that tinctured with limestone and yellow clay and of a higher temperature. There are many large springs in the county where, in the spring itself, or in a small reservoir attached, they might be cultivated, but the vicissitudes of the creek would be co much for them.

We have had several piscatorial contributions from northern waters by way of the canal, such as the lamp-lighter or new light, which have

become common in the Ohio and its larger tributaries, and they seem thrifty and contented; but they have never reached our smaller streams. It might be well to experiment with such fish as would be likely to succeed here, as the question could be settled in no other way. We have no properly migratory fish, nor would our small streams suit them. The native fish all spawn in the spring, and at the proper time leave the deep holes where they have wintered and run up far enough to find suitable localities for that purpose, and when the work is done, fall back to their old haunts or similar places affording food and shelter, and in winter. gather again into deep water, so that the same fish may be said to be always in the same neighborhood. As they live and breed above as well as below all dams, chutes are not as important here as in some other places, and, indeed, there are probably not more than half a dozen dams in the county that offer real obstructions.

To insure success, the project must have the intelligent co operation. of the public. The wanton, wholesale destruction of fish by seine and poison must be made as disreputable as robbing a hen-roost, and all must unite in a strict observance and enforcement of the law.

There are no fish of eatable size in our small streams which can not be caught without the se ne, or which can not be tempted with a baited hook by those who understand their habits; even the sucker, in winter or early spring, the only time when it is fit for the table, comes readily to land on a small hook with a bit of fish-worm, and then there is the snare and spear in clear water for those who wish to employ them.

The effort making to preserve and increase fish even in our small streams is worthy of hearty encouragement. As to the production of food in quantity, it is insignificant in comparison with what can be done in large waters, but it has its compensations. The fish is no trespasser, nor does he call upon the farmer to contribute his crops to his support, He is self-sustaining, living upon his fellows and picking up unconsidered trifles. Not only so, but he is useful in devouring all sorts of troublesome insects and their larva, for which we forget to thank him. And then there still remains the angler's pleasure, to young and old a recreation and enjoyment, and that, too, within home reach. A live boy is semi-amphibious; if he can get nothing better, he will be in a puddle, and, indeed, it is doubtful whether he could be happy and healthy without an occasional mud bath. The school-boy on Saturday breaks for the creek as eagerly as a duck, evidently following his instincts, and, luck or no luck, he comes home tired and hungry, ready to eat and sleep and try it again.

I can not close without expressing my thorough appreciation and

admiration of the labors of such as yourself, Spencer F. Baird, and other naturalists in endeavoring to increase and make practical the achievements of science. It gave me great pleasure, while holding an important military command in the central Rocky Mountains during the war of the Rebellion, to contribute some aid through the Smithsonian Institute, and I only regret that I did so little then and can do so little now.

HILLSBORO, OHIO, April 2, 1878. ED. GAZETTE: My letter to J. H. Klippart, Secretary of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, printed in your last week's paper from manuscript is remarkably correct, thanks to your compositor and the plain writing of my wife who made the copy. If this worthy effort to preserve and increase fish in Ohio waters is to be successful, all must aid, and I hope to be corrected in any mistakes and omissions I have made. If some one in each county in the State would do more thoroughly what I have attempted for this locality, it would give material aid to the project. I regret that press of matter prevented the publication of the entire letter last week, but it may have a better effect in broken doses. I hope you will urge others to give their views.

WM. O. COLLINS.

LETTER BY J. H. KLIPPART.

COLONEL W. O. COLLINS, Hillsboro, Ohio :

DEAR SIR: You did me the honor to address to me an open letter on "Fish Culture," through the columns of the Hillsboro Gazette, and as I have not the time at my command to reply to many private letters addressed to me on the same topic, I have deemed it not inappropriate to reply to your letter, and the many private ones, through the columns of the State Journal and the pages of the annual report of the State Fish Commissioners.

During the three-quarters of a century that Ohio has existed as a State, no care has been taken of, or efficient protection given to the fish in the streams or game in the forests of the State, whilst no State in the Union has abounded in greater numbers or better fish than the State of Ohio at the time of its admission into the Union, and for many years afterward. The wild game and fish were equally the property of every one who could devote the time and means necessary to secure either.

During the early part of the present century in this State the rifle procured more of the meat consumed in the family than the farm produced during either the summer or winter. My mother told me of a wedding she attended in Stark county-probably her own, for her brothers were "sharp shooters"-where buffalo and bear meat, venison, squirrels, pheasants, pigeons, woodcock, snipe, quails, wild turkey, and fish, were served for the guests, all of which were the product of the neighboring "woods," with the exception of the buffalo, which was brought from the "Indian trail," now in Wyandot county. It is no exaggeration to state that during the past half century no wild deer, bears, wolves; or panthers have been in North-eastern Ohio, and there has been no systematic effort made to protect the few deer yet remaining in the "Black Swamp." In a few years they, too, must be reckoned among the things of the past. But even if the forests had remained undisturbed, they would not have produced as much meat per acre as the clear land has produced, or can produce. If all the cattle, sheep, and swine in the State were slaughtered to-day, they would yield about seventy pounds of meat per acre, or about seven hundred pounds per capita for every man, woman, and child in the State; the annual product, of course, is a lesser amount-perhaps does not exceed four hundred pounds per capita, or forty pounds per acre. Mr. Mechi, the model farmer of England, told me, when I was visiting on his farm at Tiptree Hall, that his farm produced two hundred and twenty pounds of meat per acre. We devote an average of six millions. of acres, or about one-fourth of the entire area of the State annually to the growth of forage plants and cereals for domestic animals. If, then, with the certainty of good quality and an ample supply of food, added to the care, shelter, and protection of domestic animals, we produce an annual average of forty pounds per acre only, it is not reasonable to suppose that in a state of nature the forest could have supplied half the number of pounds of meat per acre that systematic agriculture does. Therefore, with all the protection possible, we could not rely upon the forest, or game, for the supply of meat demanded by our present mode of living, and no one would attempt to repeople the forests in Ohio with the species of animals which existed there fifty years ago. The most that can be done will be to afford a nominal protection to deer and quail; for the reason that we have not yet arrived at that stage of civilization where personal property in deer, quail, rabbits, and other wild game is recognized, and, until it is so recognized, the process of extinction is sure to be active. The humanity of our people is such that they would rather see the entire tribe of deer "wiped out" than that the surreptitious killing of a deer should be punished as it is in England or Scotland.