68 



conditions of civilization, however, the great majority of the species 

 of marine animals and of marine plants must be left out of account as 

 promising sources of human food. And even if economic pressure should 

 finally drive the white races to turn to such unfamiliar sources as 

 sea urchins, holothurians, or sea weeds, for important additions to 

 the food supply?- it is safe to pr-dict that the land will always he 

 the chief source for human food, gt least fer as long a period as it 

 is worthwhile to be concerned with the future course of events. 



^All of these are eaten, more or less, in various parts of the world. 



It is not necessary, however, to credit the sea with any fanciful 

 possibilities in order to bring out the great importance that sea foods 

 have always played in human economy. Each year man draws an enormous 

 amount of human and stock - food from fishes, crustaceans, mollusks, 

 even from sea weeds; also oil from fish as well as from the blubber of 

 seals and whales; and fertilizer, while the manufacture of leather 

 from shark skin is growing to an industry of considarable proportions. 

 The increasing pressure of population upon agriculture on the land 

 makes expansion and the proper conservation of the harvest of the sea 

 every year a more pressing problem. We must assume that this pressure, 

 not only on the resources of the Atlantic, but of the Pacific and 

 Indian Oceans as well, will continue and become more intense, for as 

 populc^tion multiplies in the countries bordering on those seas, 

 fisheries will correspondingly advance in efficiency of method, and 

 in intensity of effort, extending at the same time farther and farther 

 to regions where the supply has hardly been tapped as yet. 



The following statistics may make the economic value of these 

 products of marine animals and plants more concrete. The sea food, for 

 example, taken in an average year within the confines of the Gulf of 

 Maine (comprising the 300-mile sector between Cape Cod and the Scotian 

 Banks) amounts to about four hundred million pounds, or enough to give 

 one hundred pounds, m.ore or less, to every inhabitant of the ITew 

 England states, and of those parts of the maritime provinces that 

 border on this sector of the sea. The fisheries of California on the 

 opposite side of the continent yield about one hundred million pounds 

 annually. The combined yield of the fisheries of the United States 

 and of Canada is about three billion three hundred million pounds 

 annually, worth more than one hundred million dollars to the fisher- 

 men. The annual catch of food fishes off the Atlantic coast of the 

 United States is six to seven hundred million pounds; of fish for oil 

 and fertilizer, about as great; of shellfish (without the shells) more 

 than one hundred and forty million pounds. The catch of cod alone in 

 the western north Atlantic has averaged annually about one billion one 

 hundred million pounds for the past forty years. As long ago as 1904 

 the value of the fishes of the countries of northwestern Europe was 

 about ninety million dollars. The annual world yield of aquatic 

 products (most of it marine) is more than twenty-seven billion pounds 

 in weight, and more than a billion dollars in value. Surely, an 

 industry of this magnitude deserves the most intelligent management 

 possible. 



The correct management is predetermined by the fact that most of 

 this vast supply (mostly utilized as human food, but also including 

 important by-products), is a truly natural resource, as contrasted 



