WATER CULTURE COMPARED WITII LAND CULTURE. 235 



our fishermen will be entirely ruined. So entirely are the latter 

 satisfied of this, there is no difficulty in obtaining their consent to 

 any measures that will tend toward accomplishing this end. The 

 experiences of the lust season convinced the most incredulous, 

 and they are now as anxious to encourage the fish culture as they 

 were once bitterly prejudiced against it." 



When a process to add to the wealth and resources of the nation 

 is so simple and yet so valuable, it would be criminal in the gov- 

 ernment to refuse to lend a helping hand, as, for the reasons 

 already given, this can never be a matter of private enterprise or 

 even of State industry. Trout can be preserved in private ponds, 

 and should be, as they are, left to professional fish culturists to 

 produce, and these drive quite a trade and make large profits, 

 there being many hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in the 

 business ; but no one individual can retain any ownership over a 

 fish which must go to sea, nor can even a single State, except in 

 the rare case of the river being entirely within its own jurisdic- 

 tion. We have established a National Bureau of Agriculture on a 

 large and expensive scale. Why should there not be a similar 

 institution for pisciculture ? At least we can take a step in that 

 direction, and begin on so small a scale as is proposed by this 

 provision of law. The relative fertility of the water and the land 

 is altogether in favor of the water. An acre of land will produce 

 corn enough to support a human being, but an acre of water will 

 support several persons, and could readily be made, with proper 

 aid, to sustain the lives of many more. The former requires 

 manuring, working, planting, and harvesting : the latter merely 

 requires harvesting ; and that where the fish are sufficiently 

 abundant is hardly a labor at all. While the yield from the land 

 is reasonably large the profit is exceedingly small. The field must 

 be plowed, and harrowed, and fertilized ; the corn must be planted ; 

 it must be plowed again ; and still again, must be hoed ; and at 

 last the ears must be stripped, husked, and ground. What is the 

 net result of this compared with the natural increase offish grown 

 in abundance, almost without effort, finding their own food, and 

 finally taken in some net which does its fishing while its owner is 

 sleeping? 



Then the relative productiveness : the ear of corn grown from a 

 single kernel will more frequently fall below than rise above a 

 thousand grains. A shad lays, say sixtj r thousand eggs, of which 

 we have said fifteen thousand can be brought to maturity with the 

 care and oversight of man. Were the farmer to strew his corn 



