808 The American Naturalist. [October, 
will be disturbed, and must be adjusted by artificial means. 
But further, a study of the phenomena of marine life shows 
that the water as well as the land, through cultivation, is 
capable of producing a greatly increased food supply for man. 
The necessity of cultivating the marine resources is even now 
apparent, and many governments have already begun to cope 
with the question by the establishment of commissions of 
fisheries. Of these commissions that of the United States 
stands in the front rank by virtue of its positive results. But 
in the near future individual attention must be turned to sup- 
plementing the terrestrial resources, the wheat fields, the cattle 
and sheep ranches, by an increasing utilization and develop- 
ment of the possibilities of marine farming; by fish propaga- 
tion, by plantations of oysters, clams, quahaugs and scallops, 
by raising herds of lobsters and crabs. Improved breed of 
fish, of lobsters will result. The possibilities are well-nigh 
limitless; and by cultivation of the sea and sea bottom as 
well as of the land, man will postpone indefinitely the fulfill- 
ment of the Malthusian prophecy. 
But conditioning all advance in the possibilities of marine 
cultivation is the knowledge of the Plankton, of its distribu- 
tion, and of the fundamental basis of marine life, the micro- 
scopic marine organisms in the ocean. 
