A SYSTEM OF AQUATIC FARMING S7 



ning. Something has been accomplished in fish culture in some sec- 

 tions, but even here the full utilization of the resources of a body of 

 water are but poorly accomplished. A few sporadic efforts have been 

 made here and there in the culture of frogs and turtles, but how many 

 of them with such attention to the subject as to warrant the term cul- 

 ture? In fact, these efforts have often resulted in failure and their 

 projectors looked upon as visionaries, worthy the contempt of the hero 

 in the " Virginian." 



The farmer who drains and cultivates an acre of swampy land on 

 his farm gains that much additional space for his ordinary culture 

 and for a time at least it may be unusually productive as it contains 

 the accumulated organic debris of years, but would it not be far greater 

 wisdom to dredge out occasionally a portion of this accumulation to 

 spread upon the higher ground and keep the acre as a source of fertil- 

 izing material for the years to come. This seems all the more desirable 

 when it is remembered that this basin must collect quantities of the 

 finest and most fertile parts of the soil washed from the higher ground. 

 Moreover, I hope to show that there is good reason to expect that the 

 acre can be made so productive over and above this function of con- 

 serving fertility that it will be worth more in water than it could be as 

 cultivated land. 



What is needed in the matter of utilization of our great tracts of 

 marshy or swampy land is some such systematic study and the develop- 

 ment of some such adapted system as is in progress of development in 

 the systems of " dry farming " in the arid or semi-arid regions of the 

 west — a system which will intelligently conserve and utilize our heri- 

 tage of water, not throw it ignorantly away and reduce our uplands to 

 a condition of sterility. 



Frog farms, turtle farms, fish farms by themselves might be put 

 in the same category as skunk farms and fox farms; useful to utilize 

 certain minor tracts of otherwise worthless land, but what is needed, 

 if any general good is to follow, is a rational system applicable to the 

 treatment of all tracts of level swampy land, especially those at the 

 head waters of the great river systems and in the coastal swamps of the 

 Great Lakes and river deltas — in fact, to all areas where a fairly 

 constant water level is possible. 



Possible Crops 



It is evident that in the nature of things wherever private owner- 

 ship exists, or is possible, the effort inevitably will be toward gaining 

 the largest immediate return from any such area, and the only hope 

 of preserving these swampy tracts as reservoirs of water will be to hold 

 them as public reservations or to devise some system of production 

 which will make them more profitable with the water retained than they 



