88 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



to certain animal food, both moUuscan and crustacean, on which the 

 speckled trout thrives. 



Regui,ations Should be Based on Biomkucal Research 



The foregoing are the various causes that may disturb the bal- 

 ance of nature in lakes and streams. The only remedies that can be 

 applied to these particular disturbances are legislation and artificial 

 incubation. Both must be guided by facts obtained by biological re- 

 search. We must not jump to conclusions. No farmer who expects 

 satisfastory results ignores the work of the biologist and chemist. 

 Scientific facts have to be faced nowadays. The farmer knows, for 

 example, that he can extract free nitrogen from the air and introduce 

 it into the soil by the impregnation of leguminous plants with bacilli. 

 The fish culturist knows he can assist the introduction of free oxygen 

 into water by means of certain subaquatic vegetation. The farmer 

 also knows what is likely to make good brood stock, and so should the 

 fish culturist. Indiscriminate mating of unsuitable parents can only 

 operate detrimentally. With an intelligent policy of artificial incuba- 

 tion, fishery conservation in its truest sense should not be difficult if 

 taken in hand seriously before it is too late. Fishery administration 

 does not or should not only consist of carefully drawn up regulations 

 without biological study as a fundamental basis of them. Is it not 

 axiomatic that it is its duty to cause our waters, large and varied as 

 they are, to produce the maximum of human food possible, keeping 

 always before it the fact that the demand on our fisheries will increase 

 year by year. Especially so, as our inland fish are the only really fresh 

 fish we in Ontario and the Central provinces can ever expect to get. 



Importance of Inland Fisheries 



We must not consider that because our inland fisheries are not at 

 present an important factor in our commercial life that they will not 

 be some day, and that in the near future. You have only to look at 

 the map to see the enormous area in Ontario alone lying dormant 

 under water, much indeed in districts where agriculture would not be 

 profitable. Look at the districts of Algoma, Thunder Bay, and Kenora. 

 I do not think that the land in these districts above water would raise 

 on an average more than from five to seven pounds of beef or mutton 

 to the acre per annum. There is much water in that same area that 

 in my opinion might produce anything from 100 to 250 lbs. of fish per 

 acre per annum. That feature is important. 



