who make a living out of it. If our wheat crop is damaged 

 or the corn crop diminished or the cotton crop short, the 

 public press rings with lamentation, and the country 

 mourns over a national calamity. But the supply of our 

 fish crop yielding millions of pounds of food per annum 

 may be in process of utter annihilation, and yet no voice 

 is raised, and we sit by with folded hands in idleness. The 

 land we value dearly, because to till it costs us dear in 

 sweat and thought, and the water we despise because it 

 yields its free will offering without an effort on our part. 

 We have tilled the ground four thousand years, we have 

 just begun to till the water. 



KINDS OF WATER AND FISH-FECUNDITY-COLD-BLOODED 

 CREATURES. Fish can be raised with less trouble and 

 cost than other articles of food. The lakes and rivers 

 are full of animal and vegetable organizations upon 

 which fish can live, now wasted, but which should 

 be utilized by stocking these waters by suitable varieties. 

 There is not only an abundance of food, but it is 

 also true that fish need less food to produce a given 

 amount of flesh than is required by birds or quad- 

 rupeds. The amount which will make a pound of poultry 

 or beef, will make many pounds of fish ; this is owing to 

 the fact that they are cold blooded and usually inactive 

 animals. When we see them in water, they are in motion 

 because they see us ; at times they go long distances in 

 search of breeding places, but they are, as a rule, quite 

 torpid in their habits. Animal action consumes the 

 system. For this reason, those who wish to tatten cattle 

 or poultry keep them confined. Animal heat is also a 

 great consumer of food, and a large share of all that is 

 eaten by warm blooded animals is needed to maintain 

 this vital heat. As fish are cold-blooded, they need 

 but little food for this purpose, and most that they 



