Tons of frogs come to New York markets each year from Canada,
Michigan, and from the South and West. Few people outside of the
cities eat them. The United States Fish Commissioners reported the
product in one year: Arkansas, 58,800 lb., valued at $4162; Indiana,
24,000 lb., valued at $5026; Ohio, 14,000 lb., valued at $2340;
Vermont, 5500 lb., valued at $825, etc.--a total of $22,953.
The enormous and increasing prices of large diamond backed turtles,
and the cheapness of little ones shows that maturing, at least, if
not actually breeding them, would be well worth investigation. Many
wealthy New Yorkers send direct to Maryland for their supplies.
Where turtle meat is bottled or canned, the snapping turtle and the
common box tortoise are sometimes used as "substitutes." Both are
capital eating.
The carp is one of the most excellent fresh water fish, and is of
great value on account of the facility of culture and the enormous
extent to which this is carried on. "In Europe some artificial ponds
comprise an area of no less than 20,000 acres, and the proceeds
amount to about 500,000 pounds of carp per annum." (Hessel, in "Carp
and Its Culture.")
It attains the weight of three to four pounds in three years without
artificial feeding, and much more under more favorable conditions.
It lives to a great age and continues to grow all the while.
"In Europe it is common to see carp weighing from thirty to forty
pounds and more, measuring nearly three and one half feet in length
and two and three quarters feet in circumference."
It lives on vegetable food, insects, larvae, and worms, and will not
attack other fishes or their spawn. It is easy to raise, and,
provided certain general rules are followed, success will attend its
culture.
The localities best adapted to a carp pond are those in which there
is sufficient water at hand for the summer as well as the winter. A
mud or loam soil is best adapted for such a pond. A rocky, gravelly
ground is not suited for carp; the water should be the same depth
all the year, as variation has an injurious effect on the fish.
Carp spawn in the spring. In stocking a pond three females are
calculated to two males. The females lay a great number of eggs, but
only a small number are impregnated. The most liberal estimate will
not exceed from 800 to 1000 to one spawner, the aggregate per acre
amounting to from 4000 to 5000.
The large cities containing large numbers of Europeans furnish the
principal markets for carp. The Jewish people will not, as a rule,
buy carp unless they are alive, so it is not an uncommon thing to
see fish dealers in the Hebrew quarters pushing through the streets
carts constructed as tanks and peddling the carp alive.
Some years ago carp ponds were quite a fad among farmers of the
Central West. Americans have been slow to adopt the German carp as a
food fish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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