THE SEA AS A CONSEEVATOR OF WASTES AND A 

 EESERVOIR OF FOOD. 



By n. F. MooBE, 

 Dcpulij Commissioner, U. S. Bureau of Fisheries. 



(With S plates.) 



Of the many vast and complex problems confronting a country 

 at war, that of supplying the armies and civil populations with 

 food is one of the most vital and intricate. That it is fundamental 

 needs no demonstration, and one of the first acts of a belligerent is 

 to take steps to conserve and, if possible, increase its food supply. 

 With the acts to that end, the effort to curtail waste, to regulate 

 distribution, the fixing of minimum prices and other measures to 

 stimulate the production of the farm, we are all now familiar. 



Measurable success has been attained in the reduction of waste in 

 the household and elsewhere, although the consumer is not yet fully 

 " doing his bit," and crops of many kinds show great increases over 

 the yields of previous years, though the meat crop, which supplies 

 the major part of the high priced ingredient in our diet, protein, does 

 not, and probably can not under present conditions, respond to these 

 measures. It requires time to produce meat animals, particularly 

 beef, and the food which they require is expensive and its produc- 

 tion requires acreage which can be used in many cases for crops 

 directly convertible to human use. 



Fortunately with this condition confronting us there exists a food 

 suppl}' dietetically equivalent to meat which requires no " raising " 

 but may be had for the catching. This is found in the fish of the 

 sea and the Great Lakes and, in smaller quantity, in the minor lakes, 

 ponds, and streams. The sea, in particular, is a vast reservoir of 

 food produced without effort on the part of man. It contains nu- 

 merous fish of many kinds, some of them preying on other fish smaller, 

 weaker and less swift than themselves, others feeding on invertebrates 

 swimming in the water or resident on the bottom, and still others 

 consuming marine vegetation usually microscopic in size, but all 

 dependent directly or indirectly on plant life. 



That " all flesh is gi^ass " is as true in the water as it is on the 

 land. Since it was precipitated from the vapors which enveloped 



595 



