THE ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF SEA-FISHES. 365 



of the rivers, are excluded by dams and other obstructions from 

 all the streams which are of most value as feeding-grounds for the 

 young ; and the area which is now available for spawning is re- 

 stricted to the lower waters of the rivers, which are so assiduously 

 swept by drift-nets and seines that each fish is surely captured 

 soon after its arrival, and before it has had an opportunity to 

 deposit its eggs. The number of eggs which are naturally depos- 

 ited is now very small indeed, for, while the take upon the spawn- 

 ing-grounds has increased from 1,600,000 in 1880 to 2,600,000 in 

 1888, the take in salt water has increased from 2,500,000 to 5,000,000, 

 and the shores of our bays and sounds are now so thoroughly 

 lined with both nets and pounds that the number of shad which 

 reach the spawning-grounds at all is proportionately much less 

 than it was eight years ago, and more shad are now taken each 

 year in salt water, where spawning is impossible, than were taken 

 altogether in 1880. The fact that, in spite of all this, the value of 

 the fisheries has increased eighty-five per cent, seems to prove that 

 the shad is now entirely an artificial product, like the crops of 

 grain which are harvested on our farms. 



If any one doubts whether this result is due to man's efforts, 

 we have more conclusive evidence. Previously to 1870 no shad 

 were found in the Pacific Ocean or in any of its tributaries. Be- 

 tween 1870 and 1875 the United States Fish Commission intro- 

 duced a few young shad into the Sacramento River. The number 

 was very small, but the little fishes made their way down to the 

 Pacific to feed and grow large and fat, and to return at last to 

 the fresh water to reproduce their kind. Some of them came back 

 to the same river, but others, following the warm Pacific current, 

 wandered farther north into other rivers, until now the shad is in 

 some places sufficiently abundant to furnish profitable fisheries, 

 and it is distributed along more than three thousand miles of the 

 Pacific coast of North America, and is still spreading northward 

 in such a way as to indicate that it will in a few years be found 

 in the rivers of Asia, so that the descendants of the shad of the 

 Chesapeake Bay will increase the food-supply of China. If such 

 noteworthy and valuable results follow the artificial culture of a 

 fish which spends the greater part of its life in the ocean, and 

 there obtains its food, is there any reason why man should not 

 also make good his destruction of species which are more strictly 

 marine ? 



The great increase in the shad-fisheries during the last eight 

 years has been effected by the use of means which, while effective, 

 are very crude and primitive as compared with those of modern 

 agriculture, for example, and we must look for great improve- 

 ments and a vastly greater return in the future. A farmer who 

 did nothing more than to save and sow wild seeds which would 



