The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-07-03
FARMING
 NOW PRACTICAL
  Artificial Propagation Said to
 Be Possible  IN AMERICAN STREAMS Japanese Gets Seven Pearls From Ten Biyaives--simpIe Scientific Pro- cess May Make Costly
 Pearls Commonplace
IN AMERICAN STREAMS
From the Kansas City Star.

From the Kansas City Star.
 Pearls may be/ planted and \grown as simply as may potatoes in garden. There is a man in the Pacific who has this year an area of 5000 acres of them growing in profusion. There is half of ghe tropical oceans open to such farming. Pearls may be similarly grown in the fresh waters of the Mississippi basin, in the Missouri, or where the Colorado flows to the Pacific There seems no reason | why the next few years should not wit ness their production by the ton, or by the shpload for the matter of that.
 resident of Japan, one Makimoto, is the original pearl farmer and the planter of the present great area. His operations are based upon an application of learning acquired at Johns Hopkins university in this country. Now comes san American, John ]. Solomon of New York who has patented process which perfects farm
 ing methods and eliminates waste and chance. MT. Solomon has little machine which indicates when the pearl Is ripe for picking. He can select the market able ones as readily as an experienced farmer can go into his garden and pick ripe watermelons.
 | Then on top of this exemplification of possibilities comes Dr. Paul Bartsch, of l the National museum at Washington, a | specialist on pearls. with the statement | that he will stake his professional reputa- | tion upon his ability to produce the pearls in abundance anywhere In the tropical | oceans, throughout the Mississippi valley | n al ha Two nat | duce the ordinary mother of pearl from l which buttons are made will flourish. These declarations come at time when the prices in pearls are soaring and the demand is strong. Dealers have recently declared that the fishing grounds for first class pearls have been depleted and there | will be no further market except an occa- sional \. assignment from some eastern potentate who finds himself in financial need and sells his jewels. They come at a time when science has battled for half a century in effort to produce arti- | ficial diamonds and has never succeeded in doing so economically.
 | Granting that the gems can be pro- duced in quantities and at little cost delicate situation Is preciptated for, if great quantities of them are put on the market prices will go tumbling and the market will be ruined. A gem Is prized more for its rarity than Its beauty and who would wear diamonds if they were as plentiful as pebbles? It is realized that the moment the producers e the artifcially induced pearls lose control of the market prices will go tumbling and the pearl will become as scorned as 1t is now prized.
 Japanese Doing the Work
 Makimoto, the Japanese, was some | years ago a student at Johns Hopkins and studied zoology as did the other men in his class. He learned that the pearl was produced in certain kinds of mussels in an accidental way. It was due to the presence of a foreign substance in- side the shell of the bivalve. This foreign substance caused irritation, and to re- lieve itself of the annoyance of it the mussel threw around it coating which smoothed it over and made Its presence less annoying grain of sand might | cause the production of a pearl. More commonly, however, they were caused by a pasasite which entered the mussel and formed the nucleus for the pearl | growth The grain of sand was most likely to find place next to the shell and the pearlforrning around it Is but half a sphere. The parisite enters the body of the bivalve and the pearl is de- posited on all sides of it. making the perfectly spherical pearl Therefore those formed about the parasites are greatly superior to the others
 Makimoto returned to Japan with these fundamental facts. His home was at Shima, on the Bay of Ago, a region that for centuries has been famed for it's pearls Here so many generations of peo- l pie have spent their lives in diving for pearls that they are as much at home in water as seals. The diving Is done largely by women, and the fame of the beauty and shapeliness of these near-mer- maids has spread.
 Under the old system pearl fishing was l q mere matter of chance. The divers brought up great numbers of the mussels. opened them and searched them for the occasional pearl. Perhaps one in a. hun dred or one in a thousand yielded re- turns. Perhaps the greater proportion of the pearls found were still small ana undeveloped Their value was slight blt with a year or two more of growth they would have been worth while Makimo- to's idea was to prevent the destruction or great numbers of mussels that might later bear pearls, to conserve those that were in an immature condition and to cause the great majority to produce tn- stead of the minority. This latter was the most important part of the work If rested upon the introduction of the for eign substance into the molusl which would serve as the nucleus.
 The Buddhist priests have for centuries placed the images of their gods between the bodies and tho shells of moliusks with the result that these would be coated over with pearl. Then the shell would be shown and miracle declared. This IS comparatively easy, but the pearl resulting Is but half sphere The Jap- anese fastened two of these together and secured fairly marketable stone. Rut 1t had no such value, as would a stone that was normally sperical They, are now producing these sperical stones They guard the method of doing this with the ] greatest tenacity. Yet Dr. Bartsch de- olares that it Is a merely mechanical process and can be accomplished by any body who will take sufficient pains. Six Million Year
 It might be done by setting the for. l eigr substance on a pin,. which would produce a practically perfect stone. If might be done by introducing the for eign substance. into the fieshy part of the mollusk. Finally it might be done artificially in exactly the method that the patural pearls are developed-by the introduction of the parasite which causes the natural pearl.
 Makimoto introduced all these meth Eods into the grounds he controlled in the Bay of Ago. He inoculated the mollusl,s with the irritants and planted them in favorable grounds. From time to lime | he took some' of them up and examined the growth of the pearls. He found that the mollusks should be inoculated at 3 years of age and that the pearl would be developed ito its perfection in years more. When pr. Hugh M SmitlF of the American bureau of fisheries visited the Yld1 r1 A 6r