UC San Diego Library – Scripps Digital Collection

This volume has been prepared at the request of many of the Department's fish hatchery personnel. A hatchery treatise has long been needed to acquaint the beginning employee with the rudiments of fish culture, and also to act as a handy reference for those already experienced in the work. In addition, it should lead to greater uniformity in operations and to increased hatchery efficiency. It will also be helpful to the growing number of private trout hatchery operators.

Even though the art of trout culture dates back to the year 1741, when Stephen Ludwig Jacobi started artificial propagation in Germany, advances in methods and techniques were slow until shortly before World War II. Applied science and mechanics have revolutionized fish hatchery operations. The uses of new chemicals in treating diseases in hatcheries, eradicating undesirable fish populations, spawning, and transporting fish, and the employment of labor-saving devices such as fish loaders, self-graders, incubators, and dry feeds are only a few of the advances illustrating the progress made.

In considering literature to be embodied in this volume and suggestions received from Department employees, attention was directed especially to subjects which would benefit the average hatcheryman and assist him with his everyday problems.