American Fisheries Society 99 



lost, for it is made up very largely of plant food convertible 

 into plant life, which in turn is the basis of fundamental 

 animal life in its many forms. Here, then, chiefly in latent 

 and undeveloped form, is a boundless and increasing store 

 of basic food wealth in reserve. Here are wonderful pos- 

 sibilities in the development of food resources ; and more 

 and more as time goes on and soil wealth gravitates to the 

 sea, must the latter be depended on to support the human 

 race. When we shall have learned how, in a measure at 

 least, to direct the development and transformation of the 

 immense accumulations of basic food wealth in water areas, 

 it is certain that the creation of the higher and better forms 

 will be enormously increased, and it is not improbable that 

 the fisheries will then take rank as the most important food 

 resource that the earth affords. 



Looking at the situation from a much closer range, how- 

 ever, and in the light of what seems to be the wisest course 

 for the more immediate as well as the remote future, I 

 believe that conservation of resources, in the narrow sense 

 that they should be used with extreme conservatism, should 

 apply only to those resources that cannot be reproduced or 

 restored. "Conservation of resources" is a misleading and 

 deceptive phrase if it means that such of the natural re- 

 sources of the earth as may be reproduced, as are subject 

 to cultivation, are to be tied up and locked up and with- 

 drawn from use. This class of resources, including the 

 fisheries and forests, in the natural or so called ''conserved" 

 state, represents but a small part of their potential value 

 when subdued and developed under a systematic and scien- 

 tific scheme of cultivation. We should utilize freely but 

 not wastefully, with the obligation imposed always to more 

 than replace whenever and wherever possible, so that current 

 use of natural resources may not mean a net loss but rather 

 a net gain in the sum total of our great earthwide neces- 

 sities. In view therefore of the enormous potential food 

 value of the water domains of the earth, I believe that 

 this society, as one of the trustees of this vast public estate, 



