go POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



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With regard to salt or brackish water crops, we have already a good 

 deal of knowledge, and with some animals and for certain localities 

 quite thoroughly organized systems of cropping have been established; 

 for instance, the sponge farms in Florida and oyster farming in some 

 of the Atlantic states. The latter, however, are by no means so fully 

 regulated as to secure the best results, as is shown by the exhaustive 

 discussion of the subject by Professor Brooks. His estimate that the 

 product from Chesapeake Bay of $2,000,000 annually, could and should 

 be increased to $60,000,000, has, I believe, never been challenged, and 

 indicates the possibilities. There are other marine forms like lobster, 

 crab, shrimp and turtles which would lend themselves to similar definite 

 systems of cultivation, and in fact a study of the basis for such systems 

 has been in progress in the Bureau of Fisheries for many years past. 

 It is necessary, however, that the results be carried into definite regula- 

 tions or embodied in appropriate legislation in order to secure perpe- 

 tuity in the crops and the most profitable returns. 



In many instances, in both salt and fresh water areas, there will 

 need to be entirely new legislative enactments providing for the regu- 

 lations of water areas in which certain more or less sedentary animals 

 may be cultivated. For such as migrate freely in the open waters there 

 is perhaps no better policy than to permit capture by any individual 

 under such restrictions as to season and quantity as may serve to pro- 

 tect the future supply. If animals have a fixed habitat and are capable 

 of artificial propagation or culture, there is no logical reason why a 

 person who plants and cares for such a crop should not be protected in 

 the right to harvest it. Under existing laws, however, there is great 

 difficulty in securing such rights, as all waters which have any connec- 

 tion with navigable streams or lakes are assumed to be public property. 

 It would be entirely practicable, however, to guard the rights of prop- 

 erty in the bottoms or shores without interfering in their public use 

 for navigation, pleasure or even for fishing for such forms as are 

 migratory. These are questions, however, which can be worked out 

 when once the advantages of systematic cropping of water areas is fully 

 recognized. 



Aside from measures which utilize existing areas of swamp it 

 appears to me that great advancement may be made in the combination 

 of certain land and water crops, for instance, in a tract of marshy land 

 having practically a constant level it would seem possible to alternate 

 strips of land and water by the use of suitable dredging appliances, the 

 land portion being utilized for the cultivation of such intensive crops 

 as celery, asparagus, onions, strawberries, blackberries, etc., the fertility 

 being maintained by adding dredged materials from the bottom of 

 adjacent water strips. The water strips could then be utilized in the 

 culture of such aquatic forms as fish, frogs, clams, turtles, ducks, etc., 



