Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 87.djvu/101

Rh stage of our civilization or industrial life, as regards the utilization of fish. Not only may we question if this condition is permanent and inevitable, but we may be sure that the time will come when we will want fish to eat much more generally than now, and will get them by raising them in a larger way than is now done. We may have a familiar science of aquiculture just as we now have one of agriculture. It is interesting to note that, at the present time, there are sections of the country and classes of people for which fish forms a really staple food. This demand is so reflected in the commercial fishery that the coarser fishes, which, only a little while ago, were regarded as entirely superfluous or obnoxious, have become the mainstay of the commercial fishermen. It is still more interesting to observe that, among all classes of people, there is a noticeable awakening to the value of fish, and, concomitantly, a tendency to inquire if there is not some way to increase the supply of good table fish.

Let us now imagine that a great impetus could be given to the rearing of fish for table use as an occupation or as an adjunct to ordinary farming operations, until the fish pond were half as familiar as the poultry yard, and then let us inquire if there would be any effect upon the matter of water conservation.

The objects of flood prevention and navigation may be furthered in a temporary way by the construction of levees, by restriction of channels, and by dredging. All of these menus are good; in fact they are essential for immediate relief; but the final accomplishment of the desired ends must be sought in the regulation of the flow of the rivers, and this undoubtedly will come about through the conservation of water at the sources. We sometimes think of this as being possible of attainment only by the construction of large artificial storage reservoirs at enormous expense, and often such a plan is called impracticable. Leaving that question, as we must, to the engineer, we may look to other and smaller measures which are certainly not impracticable. Smaller measure, we say, but we know that the cumulative effect of innumerable small efforts may in the long run be vaster than that of more spectacular and expensive operations.

It is said that much can be accomplished by the proper methods of tilling the soil to prevent run-offs and to compel the filtration of the rainfall into the soil. We are told of large farms that are so worked as to prevent any water at all running off the farm, while at the same time increasing the productivity of the farm with its cultivated fields, grazing lands and forests. The methods are said to be simple and inexpensive, but an inquiry into them is apart from our present purpose.

Besides increasing the absorbent qualities of the soil, there is something which almost every farmer can do, that relatively few now