Mr. Dwight Lyell, in Forest and Stream, has this to say about a breeding place for the small-mouthed black bass.  “The pond should be six feet deep in the center and two feet around the edge; the bottom should be of natural sand; water plants should be growing in profusion, particularly such aquatic plants as the Daphnia, Bosmina, and the Corix, to furnish food for the young bass.  A good size for a breeding pond is 100 X 100 feet.”  For spawning, artificial nest frames are built in rectangular form.  They are made two feet square without bottoms.  On two adjoining sides these frames are four inches high and on the other two adjoining sides sixteen inches high.  These frames are made because the bass needs a barrier behind which the spawning may be done and which will protect the nest when made.  For raising the fish to a size large enough for food, ponds can be of any convenient size.  In order to keep the water in healthful condition the pond must be fed by a flowing brook with some provision to prevent the water being disturbed by freshets.  This can usually be arranged by a sluice to carry off the surplus water during heavy rains.  Black bass raised in shallow ponds will take the fly all summer, so that considerable may be made from fishing privileges.

In the absence of minnows, which are the food of the bass, they must be fed on fresh liver cut in threads like an angle worm to tempt the fish.  Even then the liver diet must be varied by feeding minnows from September until the bass goes into winter quarters.  In no other way can fertile eggs be assured for the spring hatching.  Minnows left in the pond all winter will breed and so furnish fry on which the young bass can feed tile next summer.”

What has been said refers particularly to the small-mouthed black bass.  The conditions are substantially the same for the large-mouthed bass (which grows to a much larger size), except that the bottom may be made of Spanish moss imbedded in cement.

There is a growing market for the young bass or fingerlings to stock streams and ponds.  The relation between the producer of stock fish and those who expect to raise bass of a marketable size is about the same as exists between the professional seed grower and the market gardener.  It is much better for the small farmer who has or can make an artificial pond to buy his fingerlings from the professional breeder, who has facilities which are too elaborate to be duplicated on a small scale.

Fish culture, except under government auspices, is little known in the United States.

American Homes and Gardens has an account of the breeding of pheasants, which is of interest.  That it is possible to breed pheasants, even around an ordinary suburban home, is shown by Mr. Homer Davenport, the famous cartoonist, who succeeded in breeding and raising some of the choicest pheasants on his place at Morris Plains, New Jersey.