The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02
SCIENCE SAVES VALUABLE FOODS Possibilities of Our Eating Peri-
 wrinkles and Squid THE GERMANS LIKE CLANS Continued Success of Lobster Farming in Narraeansett Bay-Feed Lots
 for Fattening Oysters Are
 New Wrinkle.
THE GERMANS LIKE CLANS

many, aCcoIulnS 10 u letlel iSSoiNSN 'S
 Professor A. D. Mead of the biological department of Brown University,
 member of the Rhode Island Fish Com
 mission, may learn to eat soft shelleo clams Professor Herman Henkng at tended a Rhode Island clambake about three years ago at which he was initiat- ed into the mysteries of eating deli- cacy which has been favorite with Americans since the days when hungry colonists supplemented diet of cracked corn with piclings from the tidal nats'
 You dip the clam in melted butter. twirl 1t three times around your head, and then swallow it, was the Jocose
 instruction given to the distinguished German ichthyologist. He took his les son with full appreciation of the Amer
 ican humor. Now writing informally from the fatherland he reports his diseoV- cry of millions of soft shelled clans Tn German waters and his purpose 10 uo what can be done to make his compa- triots familiar with the delights of baked clams steamed clans, and clam chowder. He speaks of a clam dinner enjoyed by several gentlemen of Hamburg who faith- fully obeyed the injunction to twirl the bivalve three times around. before eating it.
 While Germany is considering hitherto untasted clans, studies are being made on this side of the water of the edible qualities of marine snails. It has often been wondered why Americans will not enjoy the juicy periwinkle, dear to the palate of British cockneys. Other once despisced forms of sea food have come to be cherished. The popularity or the swordfish is in contrast to its neglect few years ago. The demand for horse mackeral is increasing. The edible DOT tions of the sculpin have long since been on the market. This year for the first time, squid, the American representatives of the cuttlefish family, have sold readi- ly many tons having been shipped from
 Narragansett Bay to the New York markets.
 In general there is a new disposition among Americans to realize from the harvests of the sea both by utilizing pre- viously unused species apd by protecting
 and artfcially propagating the species that have long been regarded as edible and palatable. The day of the fish farm- CT is about at hand.
 The possibilities of sea farming are
 apparent if a very little imagination Is exercised. The oceans cover three-fourths of the surface of the planet. In them life originated. They still abound with life although some species have been dec imated through destructiveness of man. Meantime much of the surface of the land consists of desert. The arable areas are limited. Their productivity dimnishes
 with ordinary use. The growers of wheat and corn are selling off with their corn +l.a tfxra nf
 soil. The areas fit for grazing are diff f1cu1t to hold intact The worlds demand for fresh meat Is outrunning the sources of supply. Man eats portion of the coat from his back every time he sits down to dinner of mutton chops. Meantime there is always the sea. The importance of it's larger species is per-
 haps generally understood. It Is not so generally appreciated that the minute life in the near-shore waters-diatoms. copepods, amphipods, and various other free swimming organisms-rnake for the support of edible fish and erustanceans as valuable food as the grass that clothes the prairies is to the herds of cattle and sheep. It has been estimated that in a
 single cove of Narragansett Bay where the water averages ten feet deep at low tide the suspended provender suitable for the consumption of ordinary species of fish runs about three tons 10 the acre. In all that was said during the recent
 congress for the preservation of natural resources little attention was paid to the necessity of saving from extinction
 marine species of great value to human ity and of securing by methods of arti- ficial propagation the increase of many of these species, so that set foods may become of more and more consequence
 as a supplement to the supplies of meat and cereals.
 The balance among the marine species is so delicate a matter that larger catches
 cannot safely be taken from the ocean
 without a corresponding increase in the
 facilities for artificial propagation. The
 annual catch made by American fisher
 men in the Atlantic and Pacific is esti- mated at about 1000, ,oOO,O 900 pounds, giving employment to 225,0O0 men and investment
 mated at about 2,0OO, GOO pounds giving of about $75 100000 capital. It could not long be maintained at even the present figures if nature were not helped out at the hatcheries.
 For science is gradually solving the problem of preventing the extinction of the valuable food fishes. Artificial meth ods many years ago solved the problem of keeping up the supply of oysters Ex-