ANIMAL FOODS

GRAZING

Food is of two classes: vegetable, which comes directly from the earth, and animal, which has fed on vegetable life. This is, of course, a more concentrated form of food, and much less of it is needed to sustain life.

For the plentiful supply of vegetable food we must depend upon the fertility of the soil, as we have seen. Our animal food can not be classed among our natural resources, but as a product of them, and requires the same care and wise use.

In the early history of our country natural animal food was abundant. Fishes swarmed in the sea, lakes, and streams. Wild turkeys and other game birds, deer, and bison formed a large part of the food of our forefathers. But these have been gradually disappearing. We have caught and destroyed so many fish that we have only a fraction of our former number. The game birds have disappeared either because they have been killed in great numbers or because their nesting-places have been destroyed. Of the big game nothing is now left except in a few remote regions, and it is growing less plentiful each year.

Although large quantities of fish and game are marketed every year at certain seasons, they form a small fraction of the animal food required in the country, and we must now depend for most of our animal food, not on that which was at first given us for a natural resource but on that raised by man.

The poultry the chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys; the cattle, beef and dairy, the hogs and the sheep that are raised in such vast numbers have taken the place of wild game. The cultivated varieties have higher food value, and are far more satisfactory, since they are ready for use at any time.

The conservation of our animal food resources presents a different problem from any other. It is true that we have wasted and exhausted our natural food supplies, but we must remember that to a certain extent their preservation was neither possible nor desirable. They have been driven out by advancing civilization.

Wild birds and animals leave as the forests are cut out, destroying their natural homes. Many of them can not be kept in captivity, so this supply never could have been regulated. It was necessary to destroy some of them to insure man’s safety, and others were needed for his use. But we can take their places with other animals which are better fitted for our food, and it is the task of keeping up a sufficient supply of these on the most suitable land and under conditions that will yield the best results, that constitutes the problem of the conservation of our animal food resources.

The raising of poultry and live stock on a large scale is a separate occupation, usually followed in a scientific manner and it is not of that industry that we need to speak, but rather of the benefit to every farmer and to the dwellers in small communities, of raising at least a part of the animal food used by the family.

Every farm has some bits of unoccupied land that can be fenced off for poultry. The gleanings from the fields will supply their food, and they will furnish meat and eggs for the family throughout the year, with enough left to sell to provide other comforts.

Live stock, cattle, sheep and hogs, as well as goats, horses and mules, are profitable to every farmer. Many farms have woodland; land that overflows at some seasons, and so is unfit for raising crops; or some rocky unproductive land where stock can be raised more profitably than anything else, and if every farmer would use all the land not suitable for farm crops for pasture land the problem of an abundant meat supply, of dairy products and of fertilizers to enrich the soil would be largely solved. Some farming experts advocate letting each field in turn be used for pasture every five years, because the stock raised on it is equal in value to any other farm crop, and because the rest and fertilization almost double the value of the succeeding year’s crop.

In the West and Southwest there are large tracts of public land untilled. Much of the land can never be used for agricultural purposes, because it is arid or mountainous.

This land is well adapted to grazing and the government has allowed free use of it to stockmen as pasture lands.

These public pasture lands are called “ranges.” In the early years when this part of the country belonged to Mexico, the ranges were traversed by Indians and Mexicans who tended the herds of wild cattle and horses, raised mostly for their hides. But in the last quarter of a century the business has fallen into the hands of Americans who have introduced better breeds of higher value. In California, Arizona, and New Mexico there are now on the open ranges eight million sheep, nearly three million cattle and nearly a million horses, worth much more than one hundred million dollars. Wyoming and Utah have great sheep ranges and do much to keep up the wool supply. On Texas, with its great cattle ranges, we depend for a large part of our beef and leather. In all these states where stock is fed on public land, there are many questions as to ownership of animals, rights of rival rangers, and other points to settle.

In some of these states the government has set aside national forest reserves. Within these is much good grazing land. In order that the government may have some revenue from the land, a regular price has been set on these forest lands. The charge is forty cents a year each for horses, thirty-five cents a year for cattle, and twelve cents for sheep. The land is properly divided, so that each kind of stock has suitable pasture. Each person who pays this tax is given a certain range and no one else is allowed to use it. There is sufficient pasture for each so that it need not be too closely cropped. A man may lease the same range year after year, may put down wells to supply his stock, live on it, and do many things to improve it.

The forest rangers who patrol the forest to watch for fires or for timber thieves also protect these stockmen in their rights and prevent trouble about grazing privileges.

Outside the forest reserves the grazing is free, but the advantages offered by this system are so great that nearly all rangers now wish to use the forest reserves.

As each ranger has his land assigned to him and no one else can use it, the grass is not overcropped as it often is in regions outside the forests. If pasture is good, so many herds are pastured there that soon the grass is all trampled down and eaten off. Large areas are so badly injured that it will not naturally resod itself.

Cattle men are asking that the same rules that apply to the national forests be applied to other public lands, so that the pasturage may be improved and each man may have protection in his rights.

If all grazing lands could be thus leased, it would give the business a far more permanent character, better breeds of stock would be raised, and individual owners would direct their efforts to improving both stock and pasture, after the manner of stock raisers on private lands.

So large a part of our animal food, our wool, our leather and many smaller needs depend on this industry, that every effort should be made to encourage it, and to provide the wisest laws and best methods both for conserving and developing it.

In conclusion it is interesting to note that the Department of Agriculture is making a study of food birds and animals in various parts of the world, and trying to domesticate them, to add to the variety of our food supply. The quail, the golden pheasant and some species of grouse among birds, and two or three species of deer, including the reindeer, appear to be adapted to domestic life in this country, and may, before many years, become a part of the animal industry of the United States.

FISHERIES

One who has never seen the big catches of fish brought in by a mackerel fleet or visited a wholesale fish market can have little idea of the importance of that industry, nor of the immense amount of food that is taken from the waters of the United States every year.

The word fish is made to include not only fish proper, but oysters, clams, scallops, lobsters, crabs, shrimps, and turtles. Fish is liked by most persons, is more easily digested than meat and is nourishing. As a food resource, it is different in many respects from any other. It does not exhaust the soil, nor take from the earth anything of value, the food of fishes consisting of water plants and animals that are not used by man in any other way. Fish also purify the water in which they live, and so cause a great, though indirect, benefit.

It is so plainly the wise thing, then, to keep our rivers stocked with fish and to use them for food only, that it seems that this valuable resource has been more seriously and unnecessarily wasted than any other.

Fish are wasted on inland streams in the following ways: (1) By dynamiting. If a charge of dynamite be exploded on the bed of the river, great numbers of fish, killed by the shock, rise to the top of the water and can be taken. This practice was quite common at one time, but is now prohibited by law in several states.

(2) By seining. A seine or net is placed entirely across the stream, and all the fish which come down the stream are caught. In several states seining is not allowed at all. In others it is allowed only at certain seasons. And in still others the meshes of the seine must be large enough to allow all fish below a certain size to slip through.

(3) By catching with a hook, (angling) more fish than can be used or catching small fish and then throwing them away. This is a very common custom among sportsmen, but should be prohibited by law. From a certain small inland lake, it is said that during the entire season an average of five thousand fish a day is taken. These are almost all caught by summer residents, and it is unlikely that a large per cent. of them are eaten. In a few years the lake will be exhausted, and will cease to furnish fish for the people of the community, and there will, of course, be no more fishing for the sportsmen. Equal waste is going on all through the summer at every resort where good fishing is to be had. Some states have laws regulating the size of the fish that may be caught and the number that one person may take in one day, and all states should have such laws.

(4) The worst waste of our fish is caused by turning large quantities of sewage or refuse from factories into streams. All the fish for miles up and down a river are often destroyed in this way. As we have seen, this is only one of the bad results of allowing such refuse to drain into streams; every state should have strict laws prohibiting it.

From the waters of the New England states more than five hundred and twenty-eight millions of fish are taken each year. Here are the great cod, mackerel, and herring fisheries. From the Middle Atlantic states, the great region for oysters, lobsters and other sea food, come eight hundred and twenty million more; one hundred and six million come from the South Atlantic states; one hundred and thirteen million, including the much sought tarpon and red snappers, come from the Gulf states; two hundred and seventeen million are caught in the Pacific states, including the great salmon catches; ninety-six millions are taken from the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and one hundred and sixty-six millions, largely salmon, from Alaska. The Great Lakes, with their pickerel, and other fine fresh-water fish furnish one hundred and thirteen millions and the small inland waters at least five millions more.

When they are taken from the waters the 2,169,000,000 pounds of fish caught in the United States are worth $58,000,000, but by canning, salting, and other processes of preserving, the value is greatly increased.

Fortunately, there is a method of conserving our supply of fish and not only preventing it from growing less, but of greatly increasing the number and improving the quality. The United States government has a thoroughly well organized fish commission, and many states and counties and even private clubs carry on the same work, which is a general supervision of the fish supply.

The government maintains stations which are regularly engaged in hatching fish, keeping them until the greatest danger of their being destroyed is past, and then placing them in various streams all over the country. These fish are always of good food varieties, and are carefully selected to insure the kind best suited to the stream, as to whether it is warm or cold, deep or shallow, clear or muddy, fresh or salt, slow and placid, or swift and turbulent, for each kind of stream has certain varieties of fish that are especially adapted to it.

With all these things taken into account, stocking only with the best food varieties, if a state has laws which require that a stream be kept free from sewage and refuse, that no tiny fish be taken from the water, and that only a stated number can be taken in a day by a single person, hundreds of small streams, ponds and reservoirs all over the country may be made to yield food supplies for the entire community near by.

Governor Deneen, of Illinois, in urging that streams be improved for navigation, says, “No estimate of the benefits to flow from stream development would be complete without allusion to the fisheries which have been established on the Illinois River, largely by restocking with fish from hatcheries. The fisheries located on that stream are second in value only to those of the Columbia River.

“Our experience thus far indicates that the food resources of the water may be brought up in value to those of the land. The Illinois valley contains 80,000 acres of water area and yields a fish product worth ten dollars an acre each year, very nearly all profit. The average value of the land product near by is a little less than twelve dollars an acre, and the labor, cost of seeding, and exhaustion of fertilization of the land must all be counted before there can be a profit.”

In 1908 the United States Fish Commission distributed nearly two and a half billion of young fish and half a million fish eggs. These were such excellent varieties as salmon, shad, trout, bass, white fish, perch, cod, flat fish and lobsters.

The Bureau of Fisheries has its fish-hatching stations, its boats for catching fish in nets and its tank cars for carrying the young fish and eggs to the streams that are to be stocked.

Some of the most important work is interestingly described in a history of the Bureau of Fisheries issued in 1908. Among other things it tells of the lobster industry in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Lobsters are not found naturally in the Pacific, but shipments of lobsters have been made from the Atlantic coast. At the last shipment, after carrying them across the continent packed in seaweed, more than a thousand lobsters were safely placed on the bed of the Pacific Ocean.

On the Atlantic coast the lobsters were rapidly disappearing when the work of artificial “planting” of young lobsters and eggs began. The results can be seen now, for more lobsters are being caught each year, and the price to users is growing less as the supply becomes more plentiful.

The shad and the salmon are considered the finest of all fish for eating. Both are salt-water fish and both have the habit of going some distance up fresh-water rivers to lay their eggs. No eggs are ever laid in salt water. The mother fish goes up beyond where the tide comes in, so that the baby fish may have fresh water, which is necessary for them. Salmon and shad are never caught in the sea, but in the rivers, where they go in large numbers to lay their eggs in the spring. This, of course, means the destruction of both fish and eggs, the present and future supply.

Shad eggs, or roe are sold in large quantities. The Bureau of Fisheries has planted three thousand millions of young shad in streams along the coast, and the eggs from which these fish were hatched were all taken from fish that had been caught for market, and would have been totally lost if the Bureau had not collected them from the fishermen.

Shad have been planted in the Sacramento and Columbia Rivers flowing into the Pacific Ocean. From these two sources they have spread until now they are found as far south as Los Angeles, and as far north as Alaska, a coast line of 4,000 miles, and it is said that more shad could now be caught in the Sacramento and Columbia Rivers than in any other water courses.

In addition to supplying the streams with young fish, it is necessary to leave a part of each river clear so that some of the fish may find their way up-stream to deposit their eggs. The salmon have been almost driven out from the waters of New England, except in the Penobscot River, where they have been kept by the watchfulness of the Fisheries Bureau. It is believed that the entire salmon industry in Maine would be wiped out in five years if fish culture should cease, and in the West, where the drain on the salmon for canning purposes is so heavy, artificial planting is used very largely to keep up the supply.

The experiments with oysters are full of interest. In Chesapeake Bay, where the best natural oyster beds were found, the demands on them were so great that the supply began to fail. In 1904 only a little more than one-fourth as many were produced as in 1880. The natural oyster beds were then marked and set aside as public fishing grounds.

These are to be used by whoever wishes but under strict protective rules. All other ocean beds may be planted with oysters by any one who leases the privilege from the state, and the right to collect the oysters from a certain bed belongs to the person who leases it as fully as does property on land.

Louisiana had a small number of natural beds. About ten years ago the planting of oyster beds began, and soon 20,000 acres had been planted. Conditions were particularly favorable, and within two years after the eggs or spawn were placed it was found that oysters three and a half to four inches in size had grown in quantities of 1,000 to 2,000 bushels per acre. For a long time it has been the custom of fishermen to fatten their oysters by transplanting them to new beds where the food is abundant, and in a short time the oysters are much plumper, it takes fewer of them to make a quart and they also sell at a higher price, because they are of the finest quality.

These rich food beds are not plentiful, and many dealers are compelled to put small oysters on the market. The Bureau of Fisheries has made a study of these food beds, and by using fertilizer, such as farmers use on their land, have been able to make such beds of sea-plants grow where they do not naturally exist. These experiments have been tried only a short time, but the results have been entirely satisfactory, and it is hoped that before long, rich oyster beds may be made to grow in any part of the ocean where oysters will thrive.

In the Great Lakes the fishing is so heavy that it is probable that the supply of perch and white fish would be very low by this time if fish-culture had not been carried on to so great an extent. White fish, lake trout, pike and perch may be hatched in such large numbers as to keep the fisheries up to their present yield.

Another important work of the Fisheries Bureau is to keep up the supply of cod for the great fisheries on the New England coast. For the last twenty years profitable shore cod fishery has been kept up on grounds that had been entirely exhausted before and also where cod had never been found before. At the wharves, government officers from the Fisheries Bureau board the fishing boats when they come in and take the eggs from the fish. These are taken to the government hatchery and either the eggs or the young fish are put back into the sea, and so keep up an unending supply.

Alaska is one of the most important fishing regions of the world. For this entire Territory, the United States paid Russia $7,200,000 and many thought that the money was practically thrown away, since it apparently bought for us nothing but barren, ice-bound shores. But since it became a part of the United States, Alaska has yielded fishery products alone amounting in value to $158,000,000 twenty-two and a half times the price paid. Of this, $49,000,000 came from the fur seal fishery, $86,000,000 from salmon and $23,000,000 from other fish.

About $1,500,000 worth of sponges are now taken from Florida waters each year. Naturally the failure of the industry would be a serious loss to the state. But the natural sponge beds are being rapidly exhausted, and the Bureau of Fisheries is convinced that the continuation of the sponge fisheries must depend on artificial planting. Sponges can be produced from cuttings at a cost much less than that of taking them from the natural beds.

Rhode Island has been successful in cultivating soft-shell clams and in increasing the area of its clam beds.

The Mississippi and its branches are subject to great floods in the early spring and occasionally in summer. After these floods millions of fishes are left in small pools some distance back from the river. These pools gradually dry up; the larger fishes are caught and the smaller ones die. The state and National Fish Commissions are now collecting these fishes in large numbers, and using them to stock ponds and rivers in other parts of the country.

They are used to supply many parts of the West and South and there is much greater demand for them than the Commissions can meet. Not that there is a lack of fish, for millions are left to waste because the Commissions can not distribute them rapidly enough to save them. If large storage ponds could be established to collect and keep the fish during the flood season, so that all the time might be spent in collecting fish during the overflow, and they could be sent out later, the amount of fish saved would be increased many fold.

The fish thus saved are being made to serve another useful purpose. Pearl buttons are made from the shells of mussels or fresh-water clams. This business, which is now worth $5,000,000, can not last many years unless some means of increasing the supply of mussels can be devised.

Now these men, who are always studying new plans, have thought of a wonderful way in which to let the fish help in carrying on this work. They obtain the mussel eggs, and when they are hatched place them in the pools with the fish from the overflowed lands. The tiny mussel larvae attach themselves to the fish and are carried to the rivers and ponds with the fish. Soon they are ready to drop to the bottom and find food for themselves.

In this way 25,000,000 mussels were carried last year to streams where mussels are known to thrive. If these mussel-bearing fish can be obtained by farmers having private fish ponds, the ponds can be drained each year and the mussels gathered, thus adding considerably to the owner’s income, and also keeping up the pearl button industry, in addition to the food supply which he gains from the fish.

Enough has been said to show clearly how desirable and how possible it is to conserve and increase our fish supplies. With the cooeperation of all who waste the fish at present, and those who might aid in stocking the streams, we could add greatly to the food supply of the nation at a less cost than in any other way.