220 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



WATER CULTURE. 



A near kinship exists between Agriculture and Aquseculture, 

 both having in view a common object, namely, the production of 

 human food. Maine possesses remarkable facilities for growing 

 fish in her numerous bodies of inland water, large and small, her 

 great length of ocean coast line and in the streams connecting the 

 fresh and salt waters. A conviction that these might be culti- 

 vated with even greater private profit and public advantage than 

 her soils has led to the presentation of the subject in former 

 reports, particularly in that of 1864. Since that date attention 

 has been so much directed to it that less need appeared of its 

 introduction in these pages. Many, however, will be glad to 

 learn how great progress has been made and is making in this new 

 culture, and that Congress has at length recognized its impor- 

 tance. Pending action upon a moderate appropriation from the 

 national treasury, proposed to be made for its furtherance, Mr. 

 Roosevelt of New York, made a speech in the House of Represen- 

 tatives in May last, so replete with instructive facts and sugges- 

 tions that it cannot fail to be received with interest, nor to 

 contribute to profitable results. 



Aqu.eculture Compared in Importance with Agriculture. 



BY HON. ROBERT B. ROOSEVKLT. 



The art of cultivating fish by artificial means is no new thing, it 

 is not an untried theory, resting more in hope than in experience, 

 but has passed the realm of experience into absolute certainty. 

 It has become a fixed art, and, although as yet scarcely developed, 

 has grown into a business of considerable magnitude and great 

 importance. Persons unacquainted with the matter have little 

 idea of the discoveries which have been made and the wonderful 

 successes of those who have devoted themselves to the study and 

 investigation of this subject, and do not appreciate the extent of 

 the influence which it is certain to exercise on the future of this 

 country, a country that is wonderfully blessed in this particular 

 as in all others, and is adapted to fish culture to a degree that 

 exists nowhere else. 



The older nations had a vague notion of this industry. In China 

 it has been carried on for centuries, as well ages ago as now, like 



