58 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
especially in the national forests in the West, at least a good beginning has 
been made to protect the streams upon which fresh-water game fish depend. 
But it is not by any means enough to protect the forests; other things must 
come in also. Where we have protected the headwaters of a stream with forest 
cover and are maintaining it, even then there are very serious dangers connected 
with other uses of the land and water which appeal directly, as I should imagine, 
to a congress such as this. For example, where water is used for power a great 
many fish may be killed by the physical arrangement of the apparatus. In 
the same manner, enormous numbers of game fish perish from time to time 
because of the use of the water in which they live for irrigation, and the lack 
of a proper system of protective headgates to keep the fish from getting into 
the irrigation ditches. 
I believe that few things will have a more beneficial influence, in the end, 
on the fisheries of the country than the demand for clear water in our streams 
for city and town supply. The fishery question is thus immediately connected 
with one of the great fundamental problems of conservation in the United 
States, which is to prevent soil wash and so to maintain the fertility of the soil 
on the farms. 
As an illustration of the unity of this great conservation problem, which 
has taken so firm a hold on the people of the United States since it was first 
propounded by the President, I think the fisheries question is one of the best. 
It is a little difficult to connect sea fisheries with forest preservation, and 
yet even in places that connection exists. The condition of the harbors and the 
lower salt reaches of the great rivers is directly affected by the condition of the 
forest cover at the head waters; and thus even here, while the relation is by 
no means so direct, it still exists. 
Therefore—and this is the substance of what I wanted to say to you to- 
day—it seems to me that every single one of the interests that are concerned 
with any phase of this great conservation problem is also concerned with the 
rest of it. You are intimately concerned with forests, water power, irrigation, 
soil conservation, and a number of others. All of these interests in their turn 
are concerned with the preservation and protection of the food and game fish. 
Many of us have been seeking for definite results on definite lines, with a 
good deal of lack of success, and for a good many years we have been working 
too much alone. If the great question of conservation is a single question, 
then it seems to me the natural remedy in this age of combination lies in the 
combination of the interests of all of us who need to get the same things done. 
’ I have been asking and getting for the National Conservation Commission 
the heartiest and most vigorous support and cooperation for the one central 
object of conservation on the part of a very large number of associations that 
are interested in specific and individual parts of the great whole. Your help 
is greatly needed. You are concerned with the business and common-sense 
use of foresight in providing for things which you foresee the need of, as well 
