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 larvæ
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 coöperation 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.
REFERENCES
Grazing Lands. Report National Conservation Commission.
Grazing on the Public Lands. (Jastro.) Report Governor's Conference.
The Grazing Lands and Public Forests of Arizona. (Heard.) Report
Governor's Conference.
Grazing Problems in the Southwest and How to Meet Them. Bulletin, Dept.
of Agriculture, 5c.
Reports of the Bureau of Animal Industry. Dept. of Agriculture.
Distribution of Fish and Fish Eggs. Dept. Commerce and Labor.[B]
[Footnote B: All Bureau and Commission reports are free.]
Reports of the Commission of Fisheries.
National Fisheries Congress.