130 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



pable of multiplying themselves, and therefore the limitation to 

 the increase of all animals which are in their natural condition. 

 The same thing applies to cultivated plants. We find nowhere 

 any kind of plants growing naturally in that crowded condition 

 in which we plant them in our fields ; and yet we are able to 

 raise such large crops because we feed the plants Avith manure, 

 we give them wherewith to live, and, by multiplying artificially 

 the food of the plant, we increase the means of sustaining the 

 larger animals ; and we are enabled ourselves to live in crowded 

 communities, because we live on food artificially raised, which 

 can be supplied almost without limit. Those wild tribes which 

 eat fish extensively, are yet sometimes famished because they 

 cannot get a sufficient supply of that food. They have not 

 learned how to multiply, as we have already learned to multi- 

 ply, some of the animals and some of the plants which are so 

 important to our prosperity. 



Now fish-raising or fish-breeding ought to be conducted on 

 the same principles on which the growing of all these various 

 products which are cultivated on the farm is carried on. That 

 is, not to follow strictly the indications of nature, but, having 

 learned from nature what are the most favorable conditions for 

 the growth and reproduction of various kinds of fish, enlarge 

 the capacity of a breed, and in that way increase the number. 



There is another feature which is very important in fish breed- 

 ing, and that is, that we can control their increase perhaps more 

 readily than we can that of other animals, on account of the 

 very large number of eggs which they lay. There are fishes a 

 single female of which lays many hundreds of thousands of eggs 

 at one time. If we could secure the conditions which would 

 prevent the largest proportion of these eggs from being wasted, 

 from becoming the prey of those animals which feed upon them, 

 from being carried by currents or tides, or the winds, into 

 places which are unfavorable for their growth ; if we could, in 

 fact, secure the perfect development of every one of those eggs, 

 you see at once how largely we might multiply animals which 

 apparently do not increase in number in their natural element, 

 and we have therefore to learn, in order to be successful in fish 

 breeding, first, what are the conditions which are most favorable 

 to the growth of the different kinds. And here we shall have 

 to learn a great deal which is not known, and which I am not 



