UNLIMITED FOOD SUPPLY FROM THE OCEAN 



279 



Unlimited Food Supply from the 

 Ocean. 



The ocean, points out Professor J. 

 Stanley Gardner in a report on British 

 fisheries, is really much more fertile 

 than the land. The earth produces one 

 crop a year, or at the best two or three, 

 but the minute vegetable organisms 

 which nourish the life of the sea grow a 

 new crop every day. 



If, therefore, the wild life of the water 

 were kept down as the wild life of the 

 land is. so that only the useful creatures 

 are allowed to multiply, there is no 

 practical limit to the quantity of human 

 food that reaches out of the soil or is 

 yielded. 



We commonly think of all the plant 

 food that leaches out of the soil or is 

 allowed to flow away as sewage as so 

 much total loss to mankind. It now ap- 

 pears, however, that much of this in 

 the economy of nature is recovered 

 again. The nitrogen, phosphorous and 

 silicon abstracted from the land help to 

 nourish the plant life of the sea. This 

 in turn is consumed by the fishes, only 

 to be returned once more to the land 

 when the "sea food" reaches the 

 market. 



Recent studies of the British fisheries 

 show that in the abundant vegetable 

 food of the North Sea most food fishes 

 grow three times as rapidly as in the 

 Baltic, and no less than eight times 

 faster than in the cold waters of the 

 Arctic Ocean, while four year old her- 

 ring from the White Sea are only one 

 eighth the size of those of the same age 

 from the fishing grounds about Ice- 

 land in the same latitvide. As for the 

 sea creatures simpler than the fishes. 

 their growth is almost entirely a ques- 

 tion of the food supply. Two starfish, 

 for example, hatched from the same lot 

 of eggs, may difi^er in size by five thous- 

 and times. 



The Brook. 



BY A. W. BROOKS, OMAHA, NEBRASKA. 



This looks like a fisherman's paradise, 

 but it is not. The spring floods make 

 it impossible to keep the stream 

 stocked. It is. however, a favorite spot 

 for picnics. Just above is a log cabin 

 with a big fireplace, and across the 

 stream is an ice cave, where ice may 

 be had for making ice cream. This cave, 

 the remains of a tunnel dug into the 

 hillside by lead prospectors, has, with 



"A FAVORITE SPOT FOR PICNICS." 



the exception of a few feet at the 

 mouth, caved in, and in the hole thus 

 left is a pool that is always frozen solid 

 — why no one knows. Perhaps the hills 

 are a vast storehouse of ice buried there 

 since the glacial period. The photo- 

 graph was taken in eastern Iowa, near 

 Strawberrv Point. 



The Workers and Money. 



It is quite probable that the workers 

 of the United States might be described 

 accurately about as follows: 



Ninety per cent trying to make 

 money, thinking of little else. 



Seven per cent despairing of making 

 money, and bitterly enxying those that 

 have money. 



Three ])er cent thinking of earnest, 

 tiseful eft'ort a])art from money, like the 

 nol)le Agassi/, who said he hadn't time 

 to make money. (That three per cent 

 allowance is very generous.) — N. Y. 

 Journal. 



