374 A I'h <i for Sea Fisheries. Chait. XXVI. 



utterly uninfluenced by the severest and most protracted 

 drought ; 

 (ii.) It yields a very large supply, 

 (iii.) A throughly wholesome one, 

 (iv.) A self creative one, only needing harvesting, 

 (v.) An inexhaustible one, 



(vi.) One not confined to any particular locality, but surround- 

 ing the whole peninsula of India, 

 (vii.) One that provides also its own highways for carriage, 

 (viii.) One that is incomparably more fertile than any land, 

 (ix.) And spreads its harvest over a longer period ; 

 I mean the sea. 



2. There is another source of food supply that has all the 

 recommendations of the above, except the 5th and 6th, 

 and in those also it falls short only in a very minor 

 degree, 

 (x.) Whde it has the further special advantage that it pene- 

 trates miles inland, 

 1 mean the estuaries. 



o. In the rivers and lakes we have, 



(xi.) A less reliable, less extensive food farm, but one capable, 



nevertheless, of supporting millions, one by no means to 



be neglected, one still immeasurably superior to the 



land ; 



(xii.) And one to be found spread over much of the interior 



country. 

 (xiii.) This whole water farm requires imcomparably less out- 

 lay, incomparably less time, to bring it into bearing than 

 any kim\\ n land farm. 

 (xiv.) This fertile food farm further yields in its very refuse, 



the means of fertilizing land farms ; 

 (xv.) And adds to the non-edible yet food-purchasing products 

 of the country. 

 4. Though they may fail possibly from the treatment they 

 receive at my hands, these broad assertions are, 1 believe, capable 

 of irrebuttable proof. Many of them seem, however, to be so self- 

 apparent thai 1 hesitate to dwell on them for fear of idle prolixity 

 calculated to weary rather than convince. Still these very truisms 

 have not been practically acted on as if they were believed. 1 hope, 



