RAISING GOLDFISH BY THE MILLION


IF YOU own a goldfish, the chances are two to one it came from Martinsville. This southern Indiana town is the goldfish center of the world. Seventy-five million fish have begun life in the 600 ponds of its famous Grassyfork Fisheries.
When I spent a week, not long ago, watching the work of caring for these miles of goldfish, 10,000.000 baby fish had just rolled from their round white eggs and were darting about ponds and hatchery tanks. For the older fish, men were cooking mush breakfasts in giant 7,000-pound boilers. Other employees were busy shooting weed-killing chemicals into ponds; stalking watersnakes, musk-rats, fish hawks; sorting, counting, packing goldfish and sending them racing across country in a giant truck that resembles a submarine and can carry 200,000 fish in a single load.