The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1894-04-18
FERTILITY UNDER WATER.
POSSIBILITIES OF THE BOTTOM OF
CHESAPEAKE BAY.

y
Ganges and other great rivers. But
it is adapted for producing only one
crop-the oyster. This mollusk, it
must be remembered, lives on vege-
table food, rs do all animals directly
or indirectly. IF there we're no plants,
all animals would starve at once.
All human food is vegetable in its
origin, whether eaten in the shape of
plants or ms beef, mutton and eggs. In
the sea the blue fish preys on smaller
fishes many of these on smaller ones
these, in turn, upon minute crusta-
ceans these on still smaller creatures (;
aud these last pasture on the micro
scopic plants which swarm at the sur
face Of the ocean. All animals ON land
and water depend for their existence
on vegetable food
To the superficial observer the vege-
tation of the sea appears to be very
scanty, aud, except for the fringe of
sea weeds along the shore, the ocean
seems, so far as plant life is concerned,
/ to be barren desert. But the micro
scope shows that the surface swarms
I with minute plants, most of them of
strange forms, having nothing in COM
mon with the trees and herbs and
grasses of the land except the power
to change mineral matter into food
that is fit for ANIMALS.
Most of these plants are so small as
to be invisible to the unaided eve,
and, even when they are gathered to-
gcther in mass, it looks like Shiny,
discolored water. They seem too in,
significant to play any important part
in the economy of naturn, but the
great monsters of the deep, beside
which the elephant and the OK and the
elk are small auimals, owe their exist
ence TO these microscopic plants
Their vegetative power is wonderful
past all expression. Among land plants
corn, which yields seed about hun
dredfold in a single season, is the em-
blem of fertility, but it can be shown
that single marine plant very much
smaller than a grain of mustard seed
would fill the whole ocean solid in less
than week, if all of its descendants
were to live.
As countless minute animals are
constantly pasturing upon them the
multiplication of these plants is kept
in check, but in calm weather it is no
rare thing to find great tracts of water
many miles in extent packed so full OF
them that the whole surface is con.
verted into Shiny mass, which breaks
the waves and smooths the surface
like oil. The so-called "back water"
of the Arctic and Antartic Oceans con
sists of a mass of these plants crowded
together until the seas are discolored
by them.
Through these seas OF "black water
roam the right whales, the largest ami
mails on earth, gulping at each mouth
full hundreds of gallons of the little
mollusks and crustaceans which feed
on the plants. In tropical seas ships
sometimes sail for days through great
floating islands of this surface vege-
tation, and the Red Sea owes its name
to the coloration of its water by
swarms of microscopic plants which
are of reddish tinge 1t has been
surmised that man may at some future
time assert his dominion over the
fishes of the sea, sending out hocks
and herds Of domesticated marine
animals to pasture and fatten upon
the vegetable life of the ocean and to
make its vast wealth of food available.
Chesapeake Bay receives the drain
age of more than 10000, 900 acres of
fertile land, the most valuable part of
the soil from which is received eventu-
ally in the bosom of its quiet waters.
There it is deposited all over the
bottom IN the form of fine black sedi-
ment, known as oyster mud This is
just as valuable to man and as fit to
nourish plants as the mud which set
ties every year on the wheat fields and
rice fields of Egypt. 1t is a natural
fertilizer and it is SO rich in organic
matter that it putrifes in few hours
when exposed to the sun.
In the shallow waters of the bay,
under the influence of warm sunlight,
this mud produces most luxurious
vegetation, but with few exceptions
the plants which grow from it are mi
croscopic and invisible. They are not
confined like land plants to the sur
face of the soil, their food being diff
fused in solution throughout the whole
body of the water. As they are
bathed on all sides by nourishment,
they do not have to go through the
slow process of sucking it through
roots aud stems, and they grow and
multiply at rate which has no par
sllel in the land plants. In fact, they
would quickly choke up the whole bay
if they were not held in check by
countless minute animals which feast
upon them.
The oyster is an animal especially
adapted for living in su,h waters and
for gathering mp these microscopic
plants and turning them into
food for man. Microscopic animals
also contribute TO its diet. These are
rather abundant in all water, though
not so much so as most people ina
gine. When a professional exhibitor
shows you, under the microscope, what
he calls drop of pure water, it is
nothing of the sort. It is either a col.
lection made by fltering several bar.
rels of water, or else it is a drop
squeezed from piece of deeayed moss
or from some other substance in which
such small organisms have lived and
multiplied.