apparatus. They seek a stratum having a temperature of 4° or 5°, the depth being variable not only in the same locality but also in the same region from time to time, and as soon as they find it they cast their lines and fish with certainty. The example is pertinent. It was furnished by an eminent scientist; it has received and still receives, every season, the sanction of practice and affords actual benefit to fishers. How eminently desirable it is that such a study should be made on the Newfoundland Banks or in Iceland, I mean in a serious way, by a competent person, and, as was done by the Norwegians, on board a vessel specially adapted for this research.
Other experiments no less interesting have been made in the laboratory of pisciculture in Flödevig. The Norwegians live by the sea; they are obliged to cultivate it, and, in fact, they declare that they have succeeded in restocking it with cod. Their processes are now being applied at Newfoundland by the English. It has been observed that the spawn of the cod must be raised in water of a certain temperature and density. If the water is too dense the young fish are not sufficiently strong to overcome its resistance and seek food on the bottom; if it is too light they easily reach the bottom, but have difficulty in holding themselves there, while if it is within the required limits of density, the animal, able to move at liberty, finds entire satisfaction of his needs and develops rapidly until, having reached his full strength, he ceases to be sensitive to the slight variations in his surroundings and can nourish himself in the sea where he is given his liberty. Breeding is carried on at Flödevig under perfectly systematic and scientific conditions, with the greatest benefit to the industry.
In the laboratory at Dildo, near St. John, Newfoundland, where similar restocking is carried on, the director, Mr. Nielsen,[1] discovered that the water in the breeding ponds for the male and female cod intended for reproduction must have a temperature from 4 to 7 degrees and that young cod, living well in water at zero, will die as soon as the temperature falls only half of a degree.
By reason of the development of science and general progress, war has become so difficult and frightful in its consequences for the two adversaries, neither of whom can ever be really victorious, that it is almost impossible between nations that are about equal in the scale of civilization. If nations wish to live and not be overwhelmed, peacefully but completely, by other peoples, their competitors in the terrible struggle for existence, they must use to their best advantage the riches of their territory, If agriculture, now scientific, obtains profit from the work of scientists who have transformed it from the collection of empirical recipes into a positive science; if we seek by knowledge of the soil, by suitable alternations of the crops, by appropriate fertilization to procure the best results from a piece of land, to make it produce a maximum of yield, we should do the same with the sea. We
- ↑ Dr. Nielsen, Annual Report, 1893, pp. 21 and 22.
