VALUE OF NORWEGIAN LAKES FOR FISH CULTURE. GOl 



wliicli quite frequently ought to be able to be done, the yield will bo 

 about 15 per cent, at least of the whole investment. If there is an oppor- 

 tunity to sell the ice which will form on a body of water thus dammed up, 

 the profit will clearly become very large ', because if one only reckons about 

 the fourth part of the usuall.y low price, $137.50 per hectare, this gives 

 85,500 in addition to the income. From this it will be seen that the 

 time may come when comparativelj" worthless land to a great extent 

 will be transformed into water-reservoirs, to prosecute fish -culture there 

 alone. 



It is truly beyond all doubt that the i)receding calculations will be 

 considered exaggerated or untrustworthy, though it must be difficult to 

 show that the profit is estimated too high in weight or in price, or that 

 the expenses associated with the business are placed too low in any 

 direction. The bulk of the whole production alone — on the average of 

 a value of $82,50 or GOO kilograms of unsortetl salmon and diiferent Icinds 

 of fresh-water fish per hectare, for 760,000 hectares equals 456,0();),000 

 kilograms — is so great that its sale for consumption in the interior of 

 the country and for export to foreign countries may appear to be in no 

 small degree improbable. Upon closer reflection, however, this improba- 

 bility ought to disappear. 



There is here in question a means of nourishment which, everywhere 

 in the old and the new world, is placed in the first rank with regard to 

 flavor just as it approaches the first rank in nourishing value in propor- 

 tion to its weight. With a full supply thereof at a price which is lower 

 than that of most other far less esteemed and valuable means of nour- 

 ishment, it cannot be doubted that it will be used instead of these, to a 

 very considerable extent, by the whole population of the country of all 

 classes. How great the consumption will become by its increased use 

 alone throughout the country it is difficult to say, but it ought, perhaps, 

 to advance to one-half of a kilogram daily x^er individual among three- 

 fourths of the poi)ulation. Without regard to its increase through time, 

 which will be promoted no little by the facilitated access to nourishment 

 which this business will produce, the consumption within the country 

 should amount to one hundred and eighty times one and a quarter mill- 

 ions, which equals 225,000,000 kilograms yearly, or about the half of the 

 entire production. 



That there will be found sale in foreign countries at the price calcu- 

 lated of what may not be consumed at home, even if very considerably 

 more than the half may be left for export, there can be no doubt. In 

 the space of two generations Europe has become always more and more 

 out of condition to feed its population with its own products. There 

 have constantly been imported fertilizers and articles of food, especially 

 grain, in large, steadily increasing quantities from other parts of the 

 world without this satisfying the constantly growing demand, whose in- 

 crease, besides, has just as steadily been counteracted by emigration on a 

 large scale. Besides grain, meat has of late years been imported in difler- 



