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of some characteristics point to a culture prosecuted 
from a remote period of time. Moreover, the ancient 
Romans practicised the art with success. The famous 
pro-consul Lucullus bred so great a variety of peculiar 
fish that his stock was sold for $150,000 of our money, 
and under the empire choice breeds were conserved by 
the wealthy with the same jealous care that a modern 
fancier bestows upon a rare strain of fowls. 
Until the present century the improvement of our 
domestic cattle was due to what was in large measure 
unconscious agency. In slaughtering, the best would 
be reserved, the most abundant milker would be longest 
spared the butcher's knife, and so bearing a larger 
progeny would tend to the displacement ‘of. inferior 
breeds. Even this crude and unintelligent mode of 
improvement we have not applied to our fish, but select 
the largest and best and leave to the poorest the 
propagation of their kind. Once a year the ancient 
Incas of Peru held a great hunt at which the best 
animals were spared and only the inferior were killed. 
The old Scotch nobility pursuing, it is so said, the 
contrary method, despatched the noblest stags and 
largest does and found themselves the ultimate possess- 
ors of an impoverished and degenerated stock. Market 
fishermen cannot be expected t to sacrifice immediate for 
ultimate gain; their need is pressing; they have families 
to support; and relentless competition necessitates their 
destructive methods. Avenues of ordinary and common 
human effort that are open to all become crowded to 
the limit of individual subsistence, and of such exigency 
selfishness and rapacity is the inevitable outcome, the 
contrary manifestation being at variance with human 
nature. Legislation is inoperative, its enforcement 
being diffcut and unsustained by public sentiment. 
Hence, under the present system the exhaustion of our 
fisheries isunavoidable, and the onlyapparent alternative 
is State ownership and operation of all appliances of 
