CULTIVATION OF MARINE AND FRESH-WATER ANIMALS IN lAPAN." 



By K. MITSUKURI, Ph.D., 

 Professor, of Zoology, Imperial University, Tokyo, Japan. 



While the pasturage of cattle and the cultivation of plants marked very earl}' 

 steps in man's advancement toward civilization, the raising of aquatic animals and 

 plants, on any extensive scale at all events, seems to belong t<> much later stages of 

 human development. In fact, the cultivation of some marine animals has been ren- 

 dered possible only by utilizing the most recent discoveries and methods of .science. 

 I believe, however, the time is now fast approaching when the increase of population 

 on the earth, and the question of food .supply which must arise as a necessary conse- 

 quence, will compel us to pay most serious attention to the utilization for this 

 purpose of what has been termed the " watery waste." 



For man to overfish and then to wait for the bounty of nature to replenish, or, 

 failing that, to seek new fishing grounds, is, it seems to me, an act to be put in the 

 same category with the doings of nomadic peoples wandering from place to place in 

 search of pastures. Hereafter, streams, rivers, lakes, and seas will have, so to speak, 

 to be pushed to a more efficient degree of cultivation and made to yield their utmost 

 for us. It is perhaps superfluous for me to state this before an audience in America. 

 for I think all candid persons will admit that the United State-, with her Bureau of 

 Fisheries, is leading other nations in hold scientific attempts in this direction. 



Nor is it simply from the utilitarian standpoint that more attention is likely to 

 be paid in future to the cultivation of aquatic organisms. Far be it from me to 

 depreciate in any way beautiful modern laboratory technique, but I think all will 

 agree the time is now gone by when science considered that when the morphology of 

 an animal has heen made out in the laboratory all that is worth knowing about it has 

 been exhausted. We have been apt to forget that animals are living entities and not 

 simply a collection of dead tissues. But we are now beginning to realize that in 

 order to arrive at the proper understanding of biological phenomena we must, in 

 addition to laboratory methods, observe living animals in their natural environment 

 or study them by subjecting them to accurate scientific experiments. To show the 

 efficiency and intricate nature of the new methods, I need only refer to the important 

 results obtained by Professor Ewart, of Edinburgh. And America has also already 

 started a zoological experimental farm, under the able directorship of Professor 



a Bead before the International Congress of Arts and Sciences, held at tin- Louisiana Purchase 

 Exposition, St. Louis, -Mo., August 21-25, 1904. 



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