近代日本の水産資源増殖は北海道庁の千歳中央孵化場（一八八八年開設）によるサケ・マス増殖事業が起点となった。一方、西日本では内水面の有用資源であったアユ資源は「乱獲」や河川を取り巻く内外の環境改変によって後退し、その対策として府県の水産試験場を中心としたアユの人工孵化放流（移殖）事業が行われた。一九〇一年開設の島根県水産試験場はこの分野で先駆的な役割を果たしている。本史料（「大正二年度島根県水産試験場臨時報告　鮎人工孵化放流試験成績」）は同事業の中間報告である。本研究は本史料の翻刻を主題とするが、以下のはしがきでは背景、特徴を解説しておく。

　Ayu is called diadromous fi sh wandering both river and sea same as salmons. By using this character, it has a history that its artifi cial propagation was performed more than one hundred years. A case of salmon, it began in earnest at the Chitose Central Hatchery in 1888.
On the one hand, the research for artificial Ayu propagation was performed for the first time at Imperial Fisheries Institute in 1899, and it began the same experiment at Shimane Prefectural Fisheries Experimental Station in 1910, and another Fisheries Experimental Stations continued to it. However, we have no the results for history of artificial Ayu propagation, therefore in this paper, I aim to reprint to its historical material, and to analyze its technological character and relationship between Ayu resources and human society in Modern Japan.