12 THE UNAPPRECIATED FISHER FOLK. 
of a space of ground, has erected upon it a cooperage, and 
has imported any quantity of barrel wood, and purchased 
salt with which to pickle the herrings, as well as numerous 
miscellaneous stores likely to prove useful in the course of 
the season, including dye-stuff for nets, nets, sails, oars and 
whisky. The curer is of course a man of some means; if 
not the possessor of ready money himself he is able, we 
shall suppose, to obtain credit at one or other of the local 
banks (“cash credits” on good security being a leading fea- 
ture of the Scottish banking system). Every curer must have 
money at command, as in numerous instances many of his 
payments have to be made long before he can realise the 
goods which he deals in. As a matter of fact, the curer 
often bargains for his herrings months before he can obtain 
them—long indeed before it can be known whether or not 
there will be any herrings to capture ; and part of the bar- 
gain made by the fishers is a stipulation for so much ready 
money—known in fishing circles as “bounty ””—in addition 
to the sum per barrel (or crav, which is a measure capable 
of containing 36 gallons of fish) which he binds himself to 
pay for the herring, and perquisites of various kinds which 
he agrees to provide, such perhaps as cutch with which to 
bark, or dye the nets, drying-ground for the nets, and a 
quantity of tea, coffee or ardent spirits ; although whisky, 
as has been already stated, is not nowadays so much in 
demand as it used to be, in consequence of the more tem- 
perate habits of the men. The curer usually contracts with 
each boat-master to supply him with two hundred barrels of 
herrings, if he can capture somany ; and acurer may have 
twenty or a hundred boats fishing for him, according to 
the amount of capital at his command, and the means he 
may possess of disposing of the cured herrings. The 
striking of a bargain between the boatmaster—or, as we had 
