MASTERTON FISH HATCHERY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1151, 23 March 1894, Page 7

MASTERTON FISH HATCHERY.

Tr* From Our Own Correspondent. Mastebton, March 15. A visit to Rome without Boeing St Peter's would be aa satisfactory aa to have a look through Masterton without inspecting the fish hatchery. If you ask a Mastertonian about the sights of' the place he generally directs you to the Acclimatisation Grounds'. r j:he prdinto w.h9 does not take* ftn immediate intereWin that'gentle"art 'so intimately' connected with the name o| laaak Walton', of piscatorial fame, is verylikely to be disappointed on visiting "the hatchery. On entering the gates, he notices to his right a long, low building, from which proceeds the sound of fallimg Ipftej;. And-ff ho is a litfle inquisitive, on applying his eye'to a*i aperture—for, 'the door is always locked—he perceives a number of trough-like vessels filled with water! This is not very satisfactory to the" visitor, who had some indefinite idea that he would stumble across mammoth trout grazing on the verdant banks of the pondg monfters as amateur anglers, inform their confiding friends have now and* again escaped their toils. To the left of the entrance are a number of ponds varying in size, form and depth, and all uwarming wi#i tg£nt of one

kind oi* another. Some of these are fine plump fellows fit to grace the table of a Royal personage, whilst the majority are not more than a couple of inches in length. To the casual visitor this is not very interesting, and so the visit is brief, and he comes away with the conviction that the friend who directed him to the ponds was a fraud, and that he was a fool for spending an hour of his valuable time in so useless a pursuit. Had he met the curator, and had he listened to the enthusiastic manner in which Mr Ayson expatiates on the benefits which the Colony derives from having such societies as the one under which he works, introducing the best and suitable fish obtainable for stocking the New Zealand rivei s. he would not go away so dissatisfied. Mr Ayson is an enthusiast, and, like all such men, his heart is in his uork; it is a labour of love to him, and as a natural consequence he is more than successful in his management of the Masterton Hatchery. He was cleaning out a small pond when I called on him, and whilst lie shovelled up the mud and weeds, taking care not to injure the small trout, and returning any to the water that had been accidentally cast on the bank, he talked about the peculiarities of the different kinds of fish to be found in the various rivers, streams and lakes of the United Kingdom, how they differed from each other, and the influence that the water and the natural food had in forming the peculiarities and habits of the fish. Mr Ayson spoke not alone with the fervour of an enthusiast, but also with the kno-vyledge born of practical experience, for prior to his undertaking the present curatorship seven years ago he had been for many years engaged in similar work in Otago. The Wellington Fish Hatchery is now one of the largest in the Colony, although the latest established, being only about eight years in existence. I enquired of Mr Ayson to what he attributed the very great success of the local hatchery over its rivals in other parts of the Colony. He replied, "Unity is strength." There are too many societies established in the South Island, the consequence being that they cannot superintend the hatching of the fish in the same systematic and successful manner that the operation is can-ied out in a large central hatchery. The Christchurch Acclimatisation Society was very successful for a number of years and distributed a large number of fish, but when the outlying districts, such as Geraldine and Timaru, broke away from it and formed local societies of their own, the parent one became crippled for want of funds, and naturally had to restrict its operations. Happily for the success of fish-hatching in the North Island, no such division of interests has occurred. The rivers in the greater part of the North Island are supplied from Masterton, whilst over 30,000 ova have been sent annually for the past three years to Sydney, where the New South Wales Government undertakes a work of national importance, which is left to the enterprise and liberality of individuals or societies in this Colony. Latest accounts from the other side state that the New Zealand trout are doing remarkably well in New South Wales waters, the ova hatching out with only an infinitesimal loss. This is a matter of which the curator is particularly proud, as. he refers with evident satisfaction to the fact that not more than 5 per cent, of the ova put to hatch fail to come to maturity. In the natural order of things, he says, it is the opinion of experts that not more than 5 per cent, of the ova ■ of " wild " fish which are deposited in the rivers at Home ever come to maturity. This is a very large margin in favour of the artificial system of propogation. Perhaps it may not be out of place here to refer to the modus operandi of the hatching and rearing of fish in an artificial state. Here is a somewhat abridged ac- \ count of the graphic description given me by Mr Ayson :—Ova are either got from trout reared in the ponds or those in the rivers, the latter being the best, no doubt owing to the greater amount of freedom they enjoy. About the season of the year when the trout are " ripe," or full of ova, they are netted in the rivers and brought to the hatching house, where the operation of what is technically known as " stripping " is performed. This is how it is done : The operator selects a trout which ho considers to be '• ripe." This he, of practical experience, can tell at a glance. He seizes the tail of the fish with th« finger and thumb of the left hand, stretches it along his arm with its head pointing to his shoulder, then bending the fish gently the ova is forced out into a dish provided for the purpose, the finger and thmmb of the right hand being sometimes run down the sides of the fish fn order to complete the work. A male fish then undergoei the 'same" operation, the ova and' the nplt being placed in the same basin. The vessel and its contents' then undergo an uiidulatory motion for some time, so that the eggs may become thoroughly impregnated. It was the custom°in the past to have the vessel used for receiving the ova partially filled, with water, but this has been done away with in recent years," as it has been found that the prifices of the eggs becoino filled with the fluid to the exelvision of the milt, and consequently a large percentage pf the ova was never impregnated. The ova are then placed in rectangular trays, about three inches deep, having perforated zinc bottoms. Several thousand are put in each tray. The trays, four deep, are next placed in a trough, filled with water. The water by an ingenious contrivance is made to flow upwards through the perforated boxes. The upward flow of the water prevents the ova from settling in a mass at the bottom of the box. The time of hatching depends on many circumstances, such as the tempera- j ture, the strength of the current, and the amount of oxygen in the water, The stronger the current the greater the amount of oxygen it contains. During the hatching season the ova require a great deal of care. Each box has to be gently lifted out every morning—otherwise

the contents will be irreparably injured—and the "dead" eggs, which float at the lop, removed. Immediately the fish are hatched out they are placed in long troughs so as to have plenty of space. After a time they are transferred to one of the small ponds, to be finally placed in the rivers about November. The curator believes in liberating the young trout high up the rivers, as near as possible to their source, as it is the tendency of the larger ones to go towards the sea. Mr Ayson attributes a great deal of the success of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society to the enthusiasm thrown into the work *by the honorary secretary, Mr Rutherford, who has spared neither time nor labour in forwarding its interests. The Society was first organised in ISB2 under the name of the Wairarapa Acclimatisation Society, when hatching boxes were erected at Masterton, and 10,000 ova of the brown trout obtained from Canterbury, successfully hatched out and liberated. In ISB4 the Wellington and Wairarapa Societies were amalgamated, when the revenue was reported to be over .£730. The annual report for 1885-86 states that about 30,000 trout of various kinds, such as brown, salmon, Loch Leven, &c, were I liberated in the rivers in the district, and ! also refers to the appointment of Mr Ayson as curator. By March, 1890, the number of fish sent out exceeded 200,000 for the year, from which will be seen the very successful manner in which the work progressed. During the year ending March, 1891, an interesting experiment was tried in the transit of ova and fry to Sydney for the New South Wales Department of Fisheries. Five thousand brown trout were sent over, where they arrived in perfect condition. During that year over 300,000 trout were distributed in the rivers of the district and sent to other parts of the Colony. There were over 800,000 fish and ova turned out during the year ending March, 1893,35,000 of which were sent to the New South Wales Department of Fisheries, who thus pay a very practical compliment to the enterprise and liberality of the members of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society. The receipts from all sources during the last financial year , amounted to .£1025. Figures are undoubtedly dry reading, and might seem out of place in a notice like this, but it is necessary to refer to them in order to show the extraordinary progress made by the Society since its inception, and how it has risen from very small beginnings to the premier position of any such venture in the Colony. Not alone was enough fish hatched in the Masterton ponds during the year ending March of last year to supply local demands, but over 250,000 fish and ova were sent to Hawke's Bay, Taranaki, Nelson, Westport, Wanganui and New South Wales. This is a record of which the Society may be proud, and unmistakably shows the state of perfection — almost amounting to a fine art —to which fish culture has been brought in Masterton. The total cost of the hatchery and ponds have been about £BOO, and with the complete appliances now erected, nearly a million ova can be hatched out annually at a cost per thousand very little in excess of the same work in Scotland, where labour is cheap and the appliances first-class. The success achieved has been in a great measure due to the officers of the Society, but more especially to the work performed by the honorary secretary, Mr A. J. Rutherford, and to the local representative on the Council, Mr W. H. Beetham, who has ■for many years taken such a deep interest in pisciculture, and more particularly in the direction of the Masterton ponds. I have referred previously to the work done by the curator. He is an expert and enthusiast, and when these are combined, success is bound to follow. The visitor will find that the Acclimatisation Society does not confine its work in the Masterton grounds wholly to fish culture, but that it has a stock of English and golden pheasants, Teneriffe sand grouse, Tasinanian and English (mallards) wild ducks. Its strong point in Masterton is fish, and however brief and imperfect this sketch is, still it will enable people at a distance to gain some idea of the splendid work which is being done here towards stocking our rivers with fish, and to ap-, preciato to some extent the benefits conferred on the Colony by the Wellington Acclimatisation Society.