ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF THE FISHERIES IN ITALY. 
od 
By GUIDO ROSSATI, 
Representing the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce. 
a 
Honorable PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: It is 
a gratifying duty that I have to perform in thanking the honorable gentle- 
men who have welcomed us to this congress and the members of its 
organizing committee for the courteous invitation extended to Italy to be 
represented at this important gathering. Idoso personally and in the name of 
the Government of Italy, whom I have the honor to represent. I can assure 
you that the Government of my country takes the utmost interest in this 
assemblage of eminent scientists and technical men, gathered here for the 
purpose of studying the multifarious problems connected with fishing and of 
promoting an industry which is probably the oldest to which man has applied 
himself for his sustentation. The Government of Italy attaches the greatest 
importance to this congress because it is in sympathy with the development of 
fish culture, and not only the Government but also the scientists of Italy will 
follow with great concern the labors of this congress, as is evidenced by the pres- 
ence here of one of the best-known Italian authorities on the subject, viz, Prof. 
Decio Vinciguerra. 
No better place for a fishery congress could have been chosen than Wash- 
ington, the capital of a great and modern nation, stretching from one to the 
other of the two largest oceans of the earth and embracing a great variety of 
climates, which enable it to avail itself of a great diversity of sea food; traversed 
by numberless rivers, among them some of the largest in the world; containing 
some of the greatest inland water basins; a country rich in streams, bays, gulfs, 
inlets, where the supply of fish is so abundant; in brief, a land which combines 
so many natural advantages and favorable conditions for fishing as to be beyond 
comparison with any other part of the globe. 
But there is another and yet stronger reason why the United States of 
America has attained preeminence in the fishing industry, and this is to be 
found in the fact that its people have sought and are continually striving 
for a better utilization of these natural factors of economic wealth, thus standing 
as an object lesson to other countries where the bountifulness of nature has not 
always been a stimulus to development and to the exercise of such effort as to 
325 
