122 
THE CALIFORNIAN SALMON. 
race. It makes an easy highway for civilisation to extend 
her bounds to the remotest corners of the earth. As a 
source of power it is invaluable ; as a fertilising agent it is 
of the utmost benefit to all kinds of animal and vegetable 
life ; but it is in the point of view as an element for the 
habitation and cultivation of useful fishes, that we would at 
the present time wish to deal with it. In this aspect it 
becomes mainly important, as furnishing a healthy, 
nourishing, and very welcome and delicious addition to our 
food supply. 
It is asserted as an undoubted fact, that an acre of water 
well stocked with fish, will produce a far larger amount of 
food for man, than the same extent of the best land, and 
with a far less expenditure of labour ; and it is only in old 
countries, such as China, where the population has over- 
taken the food supply of the land, that the waters are 
cultivated as they ought to be, and that fish becomes a 
main element in the daily food of the mass of the people. 
With the possibility of obtaining by scientific aids and 
appliances, such valuable results from the waters of our 
streams, rivers, and lakes, and even from the seas which 
wash our shores, the subject of aqui culture is deserving of 
our earnest attention. The enormous fecundity of all 
kinds of fish, renders their increase and multiplication easy; 
and the knowledge of how to turn to the best account this 
bounty of nature, is a study worthy of the highest intel- 
lectual powers, and will well repay those who devote their 
time and attention to it, by results of a kind valuable to 
the nation. 
M. Eugene Simon, who acted as Erench Consul in 
China, gives some interesting information, as to the extent 
to which aquiculture is carried on in China, and we should 
not be above taking a lesson even from the “heathen 
Chinee, whom it is the fashion in these days to despise. 
