2'2 FISH-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
increased population of the earth should need it and the sagac- 
ity of man should utilize it.. At all events nature has never 
utilized this reserve, and man finds it already here to meet his 
wants. 
If this were not so, if there were no reserved stock of seed pro- 
vided beyond what nature uses every year, or to apply the 
hypothesis to the subject before us, if the salmon produced no 
more eggs every year than what are needed to keep the places of 
the parent fish filled, then it would be time that a river’s stock of 
salmon would diminish just in proportion to the number of sal- 
mon or salmon eggs taken out of it. As itis, the parent salmon 
in a state of nature, probably produce three thousand times as 
many eggs as would be needed if all became full-grown repro- 
ductive fish. The calculation isa very simple one. For instance, 
the quantity of salmon in any specified river, before they were 
molested at all by man, unquestionably remained constant from 
year to year. Making allowance, of course, for exceptional 
years, the average of any one decade has been, without doubt, 
about the same as that of the previous or next succeeding decade. 
It follows, of course, that evey pair of full-grown fish have pro- 
duced during their lives just two, or their own number of full-_ 
grown fish of the next generation, in order to keep the whole 
river supply good from year to year. 
If they produced more uniformly, the salmon in the river 
would increase till the river would ultimately become full of 
fish; if less, the stock for the reverse reason would be ultimately ° 
exhausted. 
Now, as one pair of salmon produces yearly, say six thousand 
eggs, it follows that there are deposited each year three thou- 
sand times as many eggs as would be needed, supposing that 
every egg became a full grown, reproducing parent. 1 should 
add that this computation is based on the supposition that all 
the parent salmon die after spawning and never reproduce 
again. This is true of the bulk of the Pacific coast salmon, If 
avy do live to get back to the ocean after spawning and repro. 
duce again, it increases the ratio of the number of eggs deposit- 
ed to the number of salmon that reach maturity. 
The value to food-requiring man, of this reserve seed stock, 
