128 Tiveiity-sez'ciitJi Annual Meeting 



have opened questions of extreme scientific and economic im- 

 portance. Some years ago the Michigan Fish Commission, 

 under the able leadership of the Secretary of this society, carried 

 on through several successive summers biological investigations 

 firsi on the inland lakes of Michigan and later on Lake St. Clair 

 and Lake Michigan. For the past three years Illinois has main- 

 tained on the Illinois River a biological laboratory where, under 

 the guidance of Prof. Forbes, the problems of a river system 

 have been undergoing careful investigation. The United States 

 Fish Commission has had fur years aii important investigating 

 station at Woods Hole, but is work has been largely confined 

 [o the summer months. Numerous other less extensive enter- 

 prises might be mentioned, but these will suffice to show that the 

 time is ripe for such an undertaking of a more formal and ex- 

 tensive character. 



If the establishment of an aquacultural experiment station is 

 advocated one may well inquire as to the most favorable location 

 and as to the work it may be expected to perform. And at the 

 start it may be noted that a single station is but the beginning, for 

 just as agricultural experiment stations are found in every State, so 

 aquacultural stations should be distributed so as to aiiford oppor- 

 tunities for the investigation of all conditions for the development 

 of life in ocean, lake and'stream. For the pioneer enterprise one 

 may justly say that a lake presents the most favorable location. 

 It is, as Forbes has said, a world within itself, a unit of environ- 

 ment and 'has thus evident advantages over the ocean or stream 

 as a stc.rting point for study. In the Great Lakes I believe we 

 possess such favorable units for investigation, while at the same 

 time the economic questions associated with the depletion of the 

 whitefish are of pressing importance. Almost any location which 

 might be chosen on one of the lakes would also afford within 

 easy reach smaller inland lakes for such comparisons as should 

 prove advisable. 



Both the general government and the individual States have 

 already in existence mtjre or less extensive plants connected with 

 the various hatching stations, and these might well be made use 

 of in establishing aquacultural stations with evident saving in 

 equipment and working force, since the expensive pumping ap- 

 paratus, for instance, would serve with little or no modification 

 for both purposes. The intimate association of the scientific 

 experimentation and the hatching might be expected to redound 

 to the advantage of both. It is also evident that such an aqua- 



