WINTER MEETING. 271 



Fish Culture. 



1 have been asked to give to the Society this evening an address 

 on " Fish Farming." The term is so indefinite that I have taken the 

 liberty of changing the title to " Fish Culture," and, yet, that title is so 

 broad that scant justice can be done to the subject in the limited time 

 allowed. Fish culture is almost synonomous with that branch of the 

 Government service with which I have been identified for more than 

 twenty years. In fact, so close is the synonomy that fish culture is 

 scarcely named in any part of the world without mention of the U. S. 

 Fish Commission. It will not be surprising, then, if my remarks are 

 to some extent a running glance at what the United States Fish Com- 

 mission has attempted, what it has done, what it has failed in, and 

 what it is now trying to do. 



The fundamental act of Congress declared the duties of the Com- 

 missioner to be: "To prosecute investigations on the subject of the 

 diminution of valuable food fishes with the view of ascertaining 

 whether any and what diminution in the number of the food fishes of 

 of the United States has taken place ; and, if so, to what cause the 

 same is due ; and also whether any and what protection * * should 

 be adopted in the premises. * * * 



The principal activity of the U. S. Fish Commission has been 

 directed to the wholesale replenishment of our depleted waters, though 

 its work is lawfully and properly divided under three heads: 



1. The systematic investigation of the waters of the United States 

 and the biological and physicical problems which they present. The 

 scientific studies of the Commission are based upon a liberal and philo- 

 sophical interpretration of the law. In laying down the original plans 

 the Commissioner insisted that to study only to food-fishes would be 

 of little importance, and that useful conclusion must need rest upon 

 a broad foundation of investigations purely scientific in character. The 

 life history of species of economic value should be understood from 

 beginning to end, but no less requisite is it to know the histories of 

 the animals and plants upon which they feed or upon which their food 

 is nourished ; the histories of their enemies and friends, and the friends 

 and foes of their enemies and friends, as well as the currents, tempera- 

 tures and other physical phenomena of the waters in relation to migra- 

 tion, reproduction and growth. 



2. The investigation of the methods of fisheries, past and present, 

 and the statistics of production and commerce in fishery products. 



