THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 23 
becomes particularly apparent when we consider the effect of 
the fishing of a salmon river. The first thousand fish taken out 
of the river, though it deprives the river of three million eggs, 
makes no perceptible difference with the future supply, because 
there are so many eggs left that this abstracted quantity, great 
as it is absolutely, is relatively insignificant—the number of eggs 
left being so vastly greater. . 
The first hundred thousand salmon taken from the river makes 
no difference, partly because there are so many eggs left, and 
partly because one of nature’s compensations comes in by mak- 
ing the struggle for existence among the diminished number so 
much easier, that the eggs that are left go as far toward replen- 
ising the river’s stock as the larger number did under the less 
favorable conditions of a comparatively over-crowded river. 
So great is the reserve stock of seed originally provided, and 
so effective are the compensations of nature, that even the first 
million of parent salmon taken from a great river like the Col- 
umbia seems to make no difference in the annual run of salmon 
ip, the. river, 
We might go further, perhaps, and say that the first two mill- 
ions would make no difference, but we need not take the trouble 
to prove this, for it would not help to illustrate the point if we 
did; the point being that if the annual catch goes on increasing, 
the limit will ultimately be reached when the number of eggs in 
the fish that are left will not be enough, even with the help of 
nature’s compensating agencies, to keep up the river’s stock. 
I need hardly remind a body of fish-culturists and Commis- 
sioners that when this limit is passed, the decrease of the fish pro- 
ceeds ata rapidly accelerated rate. It is burning the candle at 
both ends, for while the diminished stock of the river keeps 
diminishing from an inadequate supply of seed, the destructive 
capacity of the engines of capture are constantly increased to 
offset the poorer fishing that results. 
Then begins a geometrical ratio of yearly decrease which is 
startling, and of which the end is complete extinction. 
Some intelligent people thought that the limit just mentioned 
had nearly been reached in the Columbia several years ago. 
Many more persons think it has now. Still, the resources of 
