3 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



otherwise be lost on sterile ground or killed by frost or damp or 

 eaten by birds and insects, would no doubt effect a slight increase 

 in the food-supply, but his efforts would be very far behind the 

 requirements of modern agriculture. His harvest would be as 

 nothing compared with that of the farmer who sows improved 

 seed; cultivates, protects, and nourishes his seedlings, and thus 

 increases many hundred-fold the bounty of nature. Can similar 

 improved methods be applied to the harvest of the sea ? The 

 Superintendant of the United States Fish Commission, Prof. Mar- 

 shall McDonald, is now trying on a large scale experiments which 

 will furnish an answer to this question, and the result will be 

 eagerly looked forward to by those who are interested in pure 

 science, as well as by those who value nothing except economic 

 results. The young shad which are reared from the artificially 

 fertilized eggs are usually turned out into the streams soon after 

 they are born to shift for themselves. Many of them perish from 

 accidents and the attacks of enemies, while others are forced to 

 struggle for an insufficient supply of food. All horticulturists 

 and breeders of domesticated animals know that the size and 

 vigor and vitality of a plant or animal depend to a great degree 

 upon its treatment during its infancy and youth, and that a 

 stunted or injured infant seldom becomes a valuable adult plant 

 or animal. Last spring about half a million young shad were 

 placed soon after hatching in a large pond in Washington, and 

 were carefully tended and fed and protected from enemies dur- 

 ing the whole of the period which the young shad spends in fresh 

 water. The young fishes prospered and grew rapidly, and nearly 

 all of them were still alive when the time for migrating to the 

 ocean came in the fall. The gates of the pond were then opened 

 one morning, and all day long the silver stream of young shad 

 poured out through them and started on the long journey down 

 to the sea. All naturalists will look forward with the greatest 

 interest to the time when these fishes return, bringing back with 

 them to the fishermen of the Potomac the wealth of food which 

 they have gathered in the ocean. In the mean time we may in- 

 dulge the hope that the strong constitutions which they have 

 acquired during their carefully nurtured youth will enable them 

 to excel their less favored brothers, and that when they reach our 

 market they will have some of the excellence of our improved 

 garden products. 



But this is not all. These shad were reared from selected eggs. 

 The adults which enter our waters first in the spring are most 

 valuable to the fishermen, since they are put upon the market at 

 a time when fresh fish are scarce and high priced. Our experience 

 with garden vegetables justifies the expectation that the eggs of 

 early shad shall themselves give birth to early shad. Now, all 



