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.

Trout, of course, can be raised, and the high prices which they bring, both in market and for fishing privileges, make them very attractive; but the cold running water needed makes opportunity for breeding them with access to a good market generally unavailable to owners of five acres.

There is another fish, famous for its eating qualities, which well repays effort put upon its production.  I refer to the black bass.  It is indigenous to the waters of the Eastern states, where it is usually found in creeks or rivers.  It can be successfully bred in properly constructed ponds.