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| exe) FISH-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION, 
how fish yield their eggs by millions.. The queen bee, it is 
said, has her 50,000 eggs aseason. But the fecundity of fish 
might as well be expressed by some algebraic formula as this— 
exj=o—, ‘Bertram: in-his “Harvest of the Sea,” say tiatine 
counted the separate eggs in the roes of some of our fish. He 
counted exactly 7,000,000 eggs in a sturgeon. In codfish he gives 
3,400,000; - in. flounders)’ 1)250,000-" in’ 'Soles:” tioo0}coo* and" im 
mackerel, 500,000. | 
We cannot too much admire the nice accuracy of scientific 
scrutiny and enumeration. Let us take a glance at these strictly 
accurate figures. We will estimate the value of herring—in the 
raw state—at one dollar a hundred. We have to pay at retail 
in the markets five or six cents each for the manufactured (smok- 
ed) article. At adollara hundred, a little school of codfish of the 
area of Rhode Island consumes, in one year, herring to the value 
of $473,928,000,000! Gentlemen can see at a glance that the an- 
nual appropriations made by the sub-marine directors of schools, 
must exceed this sum many thousand times for the codfish es- 
tablishment alone! What has Congress done that is in any 
degree comparable with this encouragement of fish-culture? We 
call ourselves a wealthy nation; yet we spend less than $80,000,- 
ooo a year for our schools—while one little codfish school costs 
for its support every year, nearly thirty times the assessed val- 
uation of all our real and personal property! But I will not 
mortify you with any more humiliating calculations. Let these 
give you some incentive towards the important work of fish- 
culture. | 
Where do the fish go? Comparatively few of them reach our 
tables as food. They have the delight of eating each other. The 
smaller pass their time in guarding against being eaten by the 
larger fish. If one-half survived there would be no need of re- 
storing our shipping—navigation would cease. 
FISH AS ICHTHYOPHAGI., 
This reminds me that fish are cannibals, as my motto indicates, 
Fish prey on fish, and live fish like live fish; so that we need have 
no compunction when preying on them. 
Professor Rice, of the New York Commission, has designated 
