BIOLOGISTS' WORK FOR THE INDUSTRY 195 



the importance of the spécial work done by the board. The 

 man in the city or elsewhere, who eats fish, is not interested in 

 the détails or difficulties of catching, canning or curing, trans- 

 porting, storing, and marketing of fish, although he may realize 

 vaguely that such things are needed and hâve their place. Ail his 

 interest is to get good, cheap fish when the notion strikes him. 

 If the fish are not good, if the price is not right, or if no fish are 

 to be had, he begins to complain and thinks that something 

 should be done, and his suggestions are rarely pertinent and 

 practicable. 



So with those in the fishing industry. So long as fish are 

 plentiful, and the canning and curing turn out satisfactorily, 

 the man in the fisheries is for the most part not interested in 

 scientific work and at best considers that it probably has its 

 places. But, when the fishery fails, or the product spoils, then 

 there is a demand that something be done. What is never fully 

 realized is that the persons with the training and ability to 

 discover the needed facts are always rare and cannot be picked 

 up at will hke an employée in a business, and also that the new 

 knowledge is built up but slowly, this man adding one thing, 

 that man another, a third perhaps bringing -the two things 

 together with a little Connecting link contributed by himself, 

 and further realizing and demonstrating the importance, of 

 the wholc matter in a -certain économie process or situation. 

 For thèse reasons it is important that, if and when a capable 

 man is available for a certain investigation, he should be given 

 the opportunity and facilities for carrying it through, and that 

 Gur scientific men should be encouraged to add incessantly to 

 knowledge concerning living things in the sea and methods 

 of making them of use for food. Such is the specialization in 

 science at the présent day that it not infrequently happens 

 that, when a certain investigation is urgently needed, there 

 is not at the time available a man of the proper training and 

 calibre to undertake it with a fair likelihood of success. Thç 

 problems investigated in any one season at the Atlantic Bio- 

 logical Station ate determined by the fact that certain indivi- 

 duals are available, as much as or more than by the fact that 



