Centennial Meeting. i 7 



is to be found also every kind of bottom and spawning-ground 

 and abundant food. It has been shown by the able and scientific 

 labors 01 the United States Commissioner, Mr. Baird, that there 

 need be no fear of scarcity of fish food either in the ocean or in our 

 great lakes, and that both waters contain much of the same sort. 

 We have only to take advantage of these opportunities. This is 

 the national centennial ; fish culture has existed only a few 

 years ; what will be its condition at its centennial the most 

 enthusiastic can hardly conceive. We have passed through 

 doubt and uncertainty ; errors were inevitable. A new science 

 was being born into the world, and mistakes were unques- 

 tionably accompanying it, but the clear light is visible at last. 

 We now know where we are, and although an endless vista lies 

 before us, we are enabled to tread it with firm and intelligent 

 steps. The vast boon to the people promised by this discovery 

 of abundant fish and cheap food is now assured. There need be 

 no fear for the future, and in much less than a hundred years 

 the waters of America will teem with food for the poor and 

 hungry, which all may come and take. [Applause.] 



Mr. Barnett Phillips of Brooklyn, N. Y., addressed the 

 meeting in detail upon the objects of interest observed by him 

 in Group V., embracing exhibits of fish, methods of fish culture, 

 appliances for fish catching, etc. 



I feel somewhat flattered by the call you have made on me to 

 describe some of the objects I may have seen in Group V. I 

 must declare my ability to do so except in the most cursory way. 

 If our two days' session were to extend over two months, 

 perhaps by constant talking I might accomplish this object. 

 All I can hope to do is to run over in a desultory and perhaps 

 unsatisfactory manner the character of the group, with its 

 various ramifications into branches or classes. 



