It sometimes requires two men to handle a large buck. As soon as the "milt" is in the pan with the eggs, a little water is added and the whole stirred until the mass of eggs is thoroughly impregnated. changes are imminent. Various streams, particularly on the Atlantic slope, have ceased to be reservoirs of fish life and have become mere vehicles for the discharge of factory and city refuse; other streams, owing to the creation of dams, long ago ceased to be available for schools of migratory fishes that formerly resorted to them every season. These were premonitory and for the most part neglected signs of conditions that are gradually arising all over the country. It may be doubted whether our industrial development is incompatible with the preservation of the physical and biological characters of our streams; but the history of other countries and the precedents afforded in our own country clearly indicate that, when the time comes to decide, the fisheries have to yield to The solution must be found in the general inauguration of private fish culture, which must necessarily reach its highest utility on farms and be conducted incidentally to the various branches of agriculture and animal industry. A substantial start has already been made in this direction, and the Bureau of Fisheries has supplied hundreds of mil-. lions of artificially hatched food fishes for stocking hundreds of thousands of minor, private waters; but only a small proportion of the farms in the country are as yet equipped with fish ponds or fish lakes, and a great obligation now de A RETORT WHICH COOKS TWO THOUSAND CANS OF SALMON AT A TIME Here they are given the final cooking under steam pressure. While large quantities of salmon are sold in a fresh, salted, or smoked condition, by far the major part of the catch is canned. In 1915 the pack of canned salmon in Alaska and the Pacific States exceeded 6,500,000 cases of 48 one-pound cans, valued at $30,000,000. volving on the fishery service of the United States and of the various States is to make known the possibilities of private pond culture and to provide the necessary stocks of fishes suitable for different waters in different parts of the country. The ample experience of private fish. culturists in all parts of the country con firms the opinion often expressed by national and State fishery officials, that under given conditions aquiculture may be more profitable than agriculture; that an acre of the best water may yield larger returns than an acre of the best land, and that food supplies of untold volume and value may be expected from what are now unused waters. COMMON AMERICAN WILD FLOWERS In this number, pages 591 to 606, the GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, at very great expense, prints another series of colored pictures of Common American Wild Flowers. These exquisite paintings, as well as the subjects of the previous series, were drawn from life by Mary E. Eaton, of the New York Botanical Garden, the able director of which, Dr. N. L. Britton, has cordially coöperated in their preparation. In future numbers the GEOGRAPHIC will present additional paintings of native wild flowers. No out-of-door interest brings to old and young richer returns in entertainment and instruction than is found in making the acquaintance of our wild flowers. Many of these, such as the daisy, mullen, aster, blue-flag, etc., are so plentiful that they may be picked at will; but there are others-for instance, the May-apple, spring beauty, lupines, lady's-slipper, etc.-which may become as rare as the trailing arbutus unless every one unites to preserve them. So it is to be hoped that the city dwellers who on their automobile excursions thoughtlessly cut and bring back great branches of dogwood and baskets laden with our rarer wood flowers will soon realize that, unless their plucking be tempered with judgment, the suburbs of all our cities will in the not-distant future be bereft of many of these flower treasures. The forget-me-not is a delightful immigrant belonging to that numerous family which includes the Virginia cowslip, hound's tongue, and comfrey. The flowering season of this plant is from May to July. It came to us from Europe and Asia, and is now spreading from Nova Scotia southward along the Atlantic coast. It was led into captivity many centuries ago. As far back as we are able to trace flower history it held an honored place in the flower garden, and when America was settled, it was brought along to cheer the settler's austere life, and to remind him of the old roof-tree across the billowy sea. The forget-me-not likes to play hookey from the flower garden, and to steal down to the brookside and meadow and live within earshot of the gurgling stream. With all that man has done for it, he has never bred out of it the spirit of independence that has been lost by most of the other flowers of the garden, for whenever opportunity affords, the forget-menot yields to the call of the wild. Have you ever noticed the little golden circle around the center of the flower? That little circle is put there by the flower as a honey guide, to tell the bee just where to insert her tongue to get the richest draught of nectar, and at the same time to touch both anther and stigma and thus fertilize the plant. And if you will watch the bees, you will discover that they are as careful to follow this signboard pointing to the well of nectar as a motoring tourist is to follow the signboard to the best hotel when night overtakes him. There are many legends concerning the forget-me-not. Tennyson once wrote that it grows for happy lovers. Another writer tells us that once upon a time a young lover, trying to gather a bunch of these lovely blossoms for his sweetheart, slipped into the water and, as he was sinking, tossed the flowers to her and asked her to keep them and not to forget him. VIRGINIA CREEPER (Parthenocissus quinquefolia (L.) Planchon) (See page 592) The Virginia creeper is a member of the grape family, cousin alike to the sour frostgrape of the woods and the luscious Concord of the vineyard. It has been called the false grape, although it is too fair a plant thus to be slandered by a name. No lover of the woodland will ever be made to believe that the Virginia creeper essays a rôle to which it is not entitled. Some people mistakenly call it the woodbine, but that name more properly belongs to another plant of the honeysuckle family. Many people confuse the Virginia creeper with the rascally poison ivy, a confusion which nothing but carelessness in remembering the characteristics of plants could bring about; for the Virginia creeper is careful always to put forth five leaves where the poison ivy has only three (compare pages 592 and 593). This graceful climber has traveled as far north as Newfoundland, as far south as Cuba, and as far west as the western part of the Mississippi Valley. It lives true to its name, creeping on and on, securing a new foothold here and another there, sending out its tendrils as it grows. When one of these succeeds in arranging its branches so that they can press upon any surface, its curved tips swell and become bright red. On their undersides they form little disks or cushions, which attach themselves to the surface and afford a new foothold for the vine. |