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