82 American Fisheries Society 



country will all read Dr. Osburn's paper. If you go back twenty years 

 you will find that the average scientist in the Bureau of Fisheries did 

 not believe in practical scientific work ; he did not believe in taking up 

 any question in applied fish culture. Today look at the difference. Ten 

 years ago there were hardly any scientists in this Society; today we are 

 getting more scientists than fish culturists, and they are helping us. 

 Twenty years ago the fishermen on the Great Lakes did not attach much 

 value to fish culture. Last year I went to a meeting of the Great Lakes 

 Fisheries Association, and I was astonished to find that all these fish pro- 

 ducers of the Great Lakes are believers in fish culture. Now we are 

 trying to produce more fish for the sportsman as well as for the com- 

 mercial fisherman. In the United States, certainly in my state, it is the 

 sportsman who makes most of the legislation; the commercial fisher- 

 man gets in only when he wants to protect his interests. The agitator 

 who pushes for appropriations and legislation and all that sort of thing 

 is the sportsman, the angler. Mr. Rowe, who is raising trout for the 

 market, has come here at his own expense from the State of Maine. 

 He is going to sit around here for three days and listen to all that is 

 said, and possibly during the whole of the three days' session he will 

 get an hour of practical information to carry back with him. Now, if 

 ■we can all contribute something of value so that the representatives of 

 the different interests can get something practical to apply to their work, 

 others will be induced to come in with us. While I am very optimistic 

 about this Society, whose efforts may have been responsible for the 

 •starting of these two colleges of fisheries and fish culture, I do not think 

 ■we can expect to get all the commercial fishermen or all of the anglers 

 with us as members, but we want to get all we can of them. 



