50 Tzcciify-si.vtii Annital Meeting 



speak of the aid that agricuUure has received from scientific in- 

 vestigation, you recognize that that great work has aided the 

 tiller of the soil. Whenever you broaden human knowledge bv 

 investigation, you have added very nnich to results. When you 

 speak of a given area of land, and compare it with an area of 

 water in its food producing power, and when you compare the 

 cost of the production of the one with the cost of the other, the 

 argument is in favor of the water. The soil is tilled, it is pre- 

 pared for the seed, it is watched constantly, the crop is garnered, 

 it is marketed, all at the cost of effort and means. But so far 

 as the great waters are concerned from which fish food is drawn, 

 the seed is sown and it grows to maturity under natural 

 conditions and at practically no cost. What is the lift habit of 

 the infant whitefish or the infant trout or any of the other nu- 

 merous cc^nnnercial varieties of fish during its first stage of life? 

 Does the character of their food change when they become 

 older? If so, what is their food after that change occurs? In 

 what respect does it differ from the earlier stage? Do they 

 forsake the spawning" beds where they are naturally brought to 

 life? If so, when, where do they go, what do they feed upon 

 there? What arc their natural enemies? All these things once 

 solved add to the cfticicncy of the work of the fish culturiest, and 

 this solution can onh be wrought out by scientific men. Man\' 

 investigations thev make may seem remotely connected with fish 

 culture, but it is not so. Look at the suggestion contained in 

 Professor Reighard's paper, of that ever working cycle of exist- 

 ence and life. The lowest form that is washed into the lake 

 basin in the nature of silt, is the food of the lowest forms of 

 plant and animal life, the\' in turn are preyed upon by the next 

 higher forms, those in turn serve as food for fish .and man feeds 

 upon fish, he dies, returns to dust and becomes the food of these 

 lower forms, if you please, and so the cycle goes on and on. 



I wish again to congratulate the fish culturists of the country 

 upon the determination of the United States Commission to en- 

 ter intothis field of scientific investigation. So far as the States are 

 concerned, I feel that any aid they can render will be cheerfully 

 accorded. We welcome the U. S. Conunission to the field, and 

 it is one of those things which seem to me to go far towards 

 commending a public officer that he proposes to take a step of 

 this kind, even though it should have been taken long ago. 



Mr. Tomlin : It gives me a great deal of jileasure to say that 

 though Minnesota has done very little towards establishing any 



