American Fisheries Society. 4:9 



Illinois has begun this work in the only reasonable way under 

 the direction of Professor Forbes. They are spending five thou- 

 sand dollars a year or more in work that the average legislature 

 would say was purely dead work. It is this measuring and 

 counting of plankton, the chemical work, on water which must 

 be done at the present time. These investigations do not directly 

 aid the work of the practical fish-culturist. but they will form 

 for the future the basis on which the practical fish-culturist will 

 ground his work; just as the scientific farmer to-day bases his 

 work on the results of the experimental station, which again, in 

 its turn, rests back on the knowledge which science has been 

 accunudating through the past generation. 



The problems for us in the life of these inland waters must 

 be taken up in that same way and worked out in that same tem- 

 per, without anticipation of immediate practical results this year 

 or next year, or even in five \ears. 



Chairman Whitaker: It is with a great deal of pleasure I 

 learn from Mr. Clark that the L'nited States Commission -has 

 finally determined to take up this most important work which has 

 been so long neglected upon the chain of great lakes. I took 

 occasion, during the life of Col. McDonald, to urge upon him 

 personally, more than once, tlie necessity of undertaking this 

 work and carrxing it on under the supervision of the United States 

 Fish Commission. They have an organized force of scientific 

 men who can plan and carr\- on this work in tlie way it 

 should be conducted, and you cannot marshal too manv forces 

 of that kind. It need not interfere with Illinois. Illinois mav aid 

 them and so they may aid Illinois. A great work of this kind, it 

 seems to me, should be done here upon the great lakes. The 

 act under which the United States Commission was organized 

 provided that they should conduct such investigations as to the 

 food fish in all the waters, not only of the ocean but of the great 

 lakes. It was a simple statement but it means a vast amount of 

 work. It nmst extend, as the ]:)rofessor has said, over vears of 

 inquiry, and how important it will be to fish culture. We are 

 just awakening to it. Ptrha])s we have thought this over person- 

 ally, but the society has taken up this question for the last three 

 of four years in a way that it never has before. How important 

 it is to know what the conditions are in the lakes influenc- 

 ing the successful planting of fish. Are there barren food 

 areas? Are there areas abounding richly in fish food? 

 When you sp"eak of the land, and its cidtivation; when you 



