492 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



try, iuclividual skill will always have great influence upon the result. 

 Without doubt, also, a prolonged and sufficiently extensive experience 

 will soon attain to further improvements in the application of the new 

 methods, and reduce greatly the chances of failure. Everything, then, 

 ^ives reason to hope that at an early period pisciculture will be natur- 

 alized among the useful sciences, and that it is destined to solve one of 

 the important terras of the great problem of cheap living. 



This result, so desirable, would be greatly expedited if the Govern- 

 ment should decide to take some energetic measures. It should cause 

 to be completely revised, by competent men, the legislation of the fluvial 

 and marine fisheries, and should bring the system of artificial fecunda- 

 tion into operation in all the fresh waters of France, at the same time 

 that a service of observation and vigilance should be organized upon our 

 coasts. In uttering this wish, we are only the echo of all the learned 

 men and economists who have touched upon this question. 



Alreadj', indeed, the state has made a first step in the path where we 

 should like to see it wholly enter. It has decreed the piscifactory of 

 Huniugue. We are far from denying the services which this establish- 

 ment may render by its consequences ; but it is clearly proved that it 

 will never suffice for entirely restocking the waters of France, and meets 

 very imperfectly the present wants of pisciculture. If there are too 

 great obstacles to putting this vast trial in practice over the whole sur- 

 face of the country, it would at least be easy for the state to undertake 

 it in more limited though still considerable proportions, and without 

 charging the budget with any new burden. For this purpose it need 

 only profit by the resources offered by the administration of waters and 

 forests. In tact, this administration disposes of a surface of canals and 

 brooks which reaches nearly 8,000 kilometers, (5,000 miles,) and has a 

 personal force quite ready and trained to the various i^ractices for the 

 husbandry of the waters. The number of its simple fisheries police 

 amount to 427, without counting the general police, sub-inspectors, and 

 inspectors which direct the others, and who are all prepared, by their 

 previous studies for applications of this kind. Here is a service extens- 

 ively organized, which would be admirably adapted to experiments of 

 pisciculture on a large scale, and which would not, even thereby, be 

 turned from its legitimate functions. 



It is to be hoped that those who are interested will not fail to be struck 

 with these easy advantages, and that they will try to attain to at least 

 a part of the results promised by the new industry. Eelying upon their 

 own resources, the proprietors have not hesitated to undergo the risks 

 of the trial; but apart from their isolated and limited efforts, does it not 

 belong to the state to give prosperity and extension to the methods 

 devised by Jacobi, and already carried by men of science in France to so 

 high a degree of perfection ? 



