Sea Farming 7 



extent it also is capable of producing organisms under a 

 system of artificial culture. 



It may also be argued that man is unable successfully to 

 give intimate attention to aquatic or even to semi- 

 aquatic forms. It might be asked, for example, why 

 frogs, that are sold in great numbers in some markets, 

 have not been improved by domestication; or why fishes 

 reared from artificially fertilized eggs have not been so 

 bred that it would be possible for them to abandon their 

 natural habits of feeding and migration, to mature and 

 reproduce themselves in captivity. In the first case, the 

 answer is that selective breeding, which perhaps would 

 not be difficult, has not been attempted. It is perhaps not 

 impossible that our markets may some day display 

 gigantic frogs that will require water only to drink. As 

 to the fishes, the only cases in which the attempt has been 

 made to modify structure and habit, have not shown re- 

 sults different from those obtained in terrestrial forms, as 

 is proved by the very curious modifications exhibited in 

 the numerous varieties of Japanese gold-fishes. It must 

 be admitted that the domestication of aquatic forms will 

 be attended by many difficulties not encountered on the 

 land, but there is no good foundation for what appears 

 to be the common belief that an attempt to domesticate 

 them may not be worth the undertaking. 



It is possible that some marine animals, on account of 

 their habits, can never be really domesticated. Such are 

 fishes that make long seasonal migrations, or that, as the 

 salmon, make one migration into fresh water to spawn 

 and perish, at a definite period in life. But even in these 

 cases the human agency may become vastly helpful in the 

 matter of their propagation. At various points along the 

 Atlantic coast, the eggs of shad are hatched in the sta- 



