38 INTEODTJCTIOlSr AND BKEEDESTG OF FISH. 



for, and it is now proposed to introduce upon the same coast the 

 American soft clam, which is so abundant in the tide-washed 

 beach sands of Long Island Sound as to form an important article 

 in the diet of the neighboring population. Experimental pisci- 

 culture has been highly successful in the United States, and will 

 probably soon become a regular branch of rural industry, especi- 

 ally as Congress has made liberal provision for its promotion.* 



The restoration of the primitive abundance of salt and fresh 

 water fish, is perhaps the greatest material benefit that, with our 

 present physical resources, governments can hope to confer upon 

 their subjects. The rivers, lakes, and sea-coasts, once re-stocked 

 and protected by law from exhaustion by taking fish at improper 

 seasons, by destructive methods, and in extravagant quantities, 

 would continue indefinitely to furnish a very large supply of 

 most healthful food, which, unlike all domestic and agricultural 

 , products, would spontaneously renew itself and cost nothing but 

 the taking. There are many sterile or worn-out soils in Europe 

 so situated that they might, at no very formidable cost, be con- 

 verted into permanent lakes, which would serve not only as res- 

 ervoirs to retain the water of winter rains and snow, and give it 

 out in the dry season for irrigation, but as breeding ponds for 

 fish, and would thus, without further cost, yield a larger supply 

 of human food than can at present be obtained from them even 

 at a great expenditure of capital and labor in agricultural opera- 

 tions.f The additions which might be made to the nutriment of 



Census, entitled. Oyster Industry, by Ernest IngersoU, 1881. Tliis exhaustive 

 work, prepared under the direction of Profs. S. F. Baird and G. Brown Goodo 

 of the Smithsonian Institution, is a mine of information on the culture and the 

 commerce of the oyster. The extent of this fishery will be a surprise even to 

 those who have watched with anxiety its rapidly increasing proportions, and 

 the statements made with regard to the numerous enemies that attack the 

 young oyster plantations render only too probable the conclusion of Prof. G. 

 B. Goode : "A speedy extermination of this most valuable moUusk will doubt- 

 less result unless some effective means of protection and of artificial culture are 

 soon employed." 



* The operations of the United States Government, under Prof. S. F. Baird 

 and his associates, have been attended with surprising results. Not only new 

 habitats, but new species of edible ocean-fish were discovered, in 1881, in great 

 numbers, near our coasts, and the artificial propagation of fish has for some 

 time been successfully prosecuted under the same general direction. 



t See AcKERHOF, Die Nutzung der Teiche und Oewdsser. Quedlinburg, 1869. 



