GETTING FOOD FROM WATER: A GUIDE TO BACKYARD AQUACULTURE. By Gene Logsdon.

1978 1st edition. 8vo (157 x 241mm). Ppxii,371. B/w photographs, b/w line illustrations, bibliography. Blue-green boards, spine titled in silver gilt.

By "backyard aquaculture", Gene Logsdon really means spare land containing rivers and large lakes. Everything here looks useful to those operating on a small scale, however. A detailed and useful manual. Chapters include: Manipulating naturally available water; The never-failing spring - watercress, irrigation, measuring, capturing; The mountian stream - the trout stream, management; Common warm-water creeks - building a small rock dam, natural aquacultural diversity; The many faces of freshwater wetlands - cranberry bogs, peat bogs, the beaver pond, cattail marshes, the prairie pothole, the oxbow, duck ponds and frog ponds, wild rice lakes, rivers, lakes; Tidal wetlands - plants, shellfish, diamondback terrapins, saltwater fish; Enjoying a farm pond; Building a pond; Pond maintenance - controlling the weeds, fertilization, herbicides, control without chemicals; Maintaining water quality; Raising fish in an artificial pond (warm water and cold water); Specialized fish production - catfish, trout, tilapia, carp, yellow perch, bluegills, bullheads, crayfish, other kinds of fish, diseases and parasites; Backyard fish production experiments - the New Alchemy Institute, Rodale Press's research, fish pond-greenhouse, backyard trout pools, raising catfish in a barrel; Ducks and geese - polyculture systems, raising ducks, raising geese; Garden pools and water gardens; Wierd new (and old) ideas for the future - algae, future farm crop?, dew ponds, solar stills, run-off agriculture, ice for the icehouse, using marsh plants to clean sewage water, ponds to collect solar heat, water buffalo. An appendix deals with the US fish commissions.