Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1891-04-24
WATER FARMS.
WONDERS IN CULTIVATION OF
LAKE AND SEA.
An Aero of Water Moro Productive
Than One misunderstanding tho
Occan-f!imitlcss Possibilities
Of This Now Industry.

ot IniS Now Industry.
Within century from the present
date tho waters OF this country will sup
ply us much food rs tho land produces.
| 60 the authorities in the Fish Commits
sion aud geological survey assert. BY
that time water farms will have become
us plentiful rs land farms, and tho
| aqueous acres will DO cultivated with us
much attention rs the terrestrial.
Understanding is, in fact, to be tho
great industry OF tho future. 1t is fur
moro profitable, even now, for given area
than the tilling of tho most fertile soil.
A fruitful acre of earth will support
one young bullock, increasing the weight
OF the beast five hundred pounds in a
twclvcmonth. Ono aero of water, prop
erly located will produce 10, 900 pounds
of oyster meat, shells and juice not
included, in tho same length of time.
Oysters arc, weight for weight, very
nearly equal to beef for making flesh and
blood. BY artificial propagation, as it is
now beginning to be carried or, the en-
tire bottom surface of all streams near
the sea, and cstuarics also, can be mado
to yield crops in this proportion.
| but great rs will DO the business of
raising oysters on our coasts century
from now, it will bear but small com
pnrison with tho cultivation of fish, This
will BIO carried on in three branches.
The most important will DO their propa-
CATION for market in tho waters of the in
terror, which will afford opportunities
hitherto undrcamcd OF for economic, fish
farming.
1t is not generally realized that there
are in this country literally millions upon
millions of lakes available for this pur-
pose, in size all the way from mere ponds
to the great inland seas of fresh water.
In Illinois alone there are tens of thous-
ands of lakes, and hundreds of thous-
ands more Gun be readily created. There
are in that State hundreds of thousands
OF extinct lakes which can easily be trans
formed into sheets of water by the sim
plcst mcans. All the enormous "Iakc
Plain, MS it is known to biologists,
comprising Wisconsin, Minnesota and
Michigan north of the Ohio River.
Is dotted with countless sheets of water,
conditions being abundant for creating
n million more by such inexpensive arti-
fees as tho damning of streams. by
damning at intervals, every creek and
rivulct can he made to form artificial
lakes. Everywhere in tho United States
it is pretty much tho same, and every
acre of this water can be made to pro-
ducc several times rs much food MS can
be obtained fro:n the most fertile acre of
/ land.
Even the vast arid rcgion-thc "Grcat
Desert" Of the Vests specklcd all over
with multitudcs "f extinct lakes, which
can be filed once more nnd made to TEEN
again with fish life, MS they once did. In
the marshes where once these dead ponds
were, countless shells and fish fossils arc
found to-day. From such sources were
obtained the remains of masladons prc.
served in the museums, the mighty
BEASTS having got mired when they went
for water and SO persisted, leaving Their
bones behind them to excite the wonder
of n later age. When tho irrigation OF
the arid belt has become m accomplished
fact, the water stored in reservoirs will
produce rs much value in the shape OF
fishes Us from the land in the form OF
vegetables.
All these millions of water farms, rs
they are some day destined to be, will be
planted with fishes native to the NIissis.
sippi Vallcy-such Us the Graphic, black
bnss, rock bass and pickcrcl-as well as
with land locked salmon, carp and other
suitable species, palatablc aud quickly
multiplying. The Mississippi Valley it.
self, by the way, with its multitudinous
bayous, will afford extensive md most
profitable areas for the propagation OF
scaly food.
One principle at the bottom OF the fact
that water farming makes bigger gains
than land farming is that, whereas
u pound of beef must carry its own
weight, ms it were, the animal wasting
most OF what it eats III the muscular cf-
fort OF walking about, the fish is sus.
pended without effort in its nativc Gle.
mcnt, having merely to wagglc its fins oc-
casionallyin order to achieve what loco
motion is necessary, so that nearly all OF
Its food goes to support and increase the
bulk Of its body, ut so much per sixteen
ounces, market price.
The second great branch of the water
farming industry Of the future will be
the cultivation Of the coastal waters of
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well ns
of the Gulf of Mexico. 1t is rs easy to
stock those waters as to do the like for the
ponds and lakes, and operations for pro.
pagating purposes can be carried on with
equal certainty of success.
On the Pacific coast Holsters arc being
planted by the millions, in the shape of
little fellows II couple OF inches long, and
they are thriving so we'll. though un.
known on those shores hitherto, that as
soon NJ they have had time for multiply
ing, they arc likely to supply the whole