NOTES ON THE STUDY 



OF 



AQUATIC LIFE 



IN ITS ECONOMIC ASPECT. 



BY EDWARD J. BURNHAM. 



The benefits resulting from the S3^stematic production of food 

 from the soil are so obvious and the rude practice of the art is 

 so simple that the fundamental principles of agriculture have 

 been more or less clearh^ understood from very early times ; 

 but the possibilities in the intelligent cultivation of bod- 

 ies of fresh water — of brooks, rivers, ponds and lakes — have been 

 but dimly perceived, and the principles underlying such culti- 

 vation have scarcely been understood at all. 



Few people think of fresh water fish culture as other than a 

 means of affording amusement to the local angler or an addi- 

 tional attraction to the summer sojourner. With these ends in 

 view, fish are hatched in large numbers and placed, while still 

 young, in waters where it is blindly hoped they will thrive, but 

 with no definite provision for their future needs. In many cases 

 the money would be as intelligently and profitably expended 

 for seed wheat to be cast at random to the four quarters of the 

 earth. 



The natural fecundity of fishes is so great, and their growth 

 under favorable conditions is so rapid, that, given an adequate 

 food suppl}^ in suitable surroundings, the product, both in num- 

 bers and in weight, would be wellnigh incalculable ; but in or- 

 der that a considerable proportion of any species, whether 

 hatched naturally or artificially, may reach maturity, all the 

 circumstances affecting their food supply must the clearly un- 

 derstood, that the conditions ma}' be, as far as possible, intelli- 



