The ideal brook, and the country is full of them, has gravelly or sandy stretches which serve as spawning beds, swift rapids where exercise is necessary, and deep pools for rest and quiet, shallow places where insects lurk in the overhanging vegetation, and once in a great while a real little waterfall where the water gets well churned and mixed with air. The brook ought to supply enough food for all, but I have seen fish so plentiful in well-cared-for streams that it was necessary to feed them. We would take great pans of specially prepared food to the water's edge; as we threw it broadcast on the surface the trout would leap entirely out of the water in their eagerness to get the morsels. We did not feed them liver because the epicure does not like his trout to have a liver flavour. The natural food of the trout should be encouraged to breed in the trout stream. You can restock your stream with the little crustaceans, insect nymphs, and similar fish food from other streams if you think it necessary. A few pails full of mud carried across will start them. [Illustration: Photograph by Helen W. Cooke. Plenty of Trout in This Stream When Grandfather Was a Boy] The greatest necessity is to protect your fish from their natural enemies. Big fish will eat little fish, trout will eat trout, so will bass, pickerel, and suckers. You can keep the big fish out by screening the spillway at the upper dam. There is good fun to be had in raising trout from the egg. This work has been regarded by most people as too complicated and too difficult for any but an expert. As a matter of fact, it is no more difficult than many of the occupations boys engage in, chicken raising, bee-keeping, and photography, for instance. Visit a fish hatchery if you have one near, get all the government bulletins on the subject, and, if you have available running water, you can try your hand at trout growing. It would not appeal to many, but it is really fascinating work. SPRINGS FOR TROUT CULTURE If there are constant, cold springs on your place, you are neglecting a golden opportunity for earning money in an easy and delightful way. A spring is capable of furnishing living room for a large family of trout. You can sell live trout at sixty-five cents to a dollar a pound to a first-class hotel. The big fish bring the smaller prices per pound, those weighing from half a pound to a pound being most popular. Clean out your spring first and make a basin ten to twenty feet square, the bigger the better. Put a fine, galvanized iron netting over the overflow of your reservoir. Young fish can be bought from a fish hatchery in the form of eggs, fry, fingerlings, yearlings, or even larger. The government will stock your streams for you free, but it imposes certain conditions, which is quite just and proper. Get all the information you can from state fish hatcheries or the United States Bureau of Fisheries, before you decide finally. RECLAIMING A SPRING