16 THE UNAPPRECIATED FISHER FOLK, 
clinker-built boats that have been so long in use; they 
are usually manned by four persons in addition to the 
skipper, who may be either sole or part owner, and all 
on board find plenty of work to do on each evening of 
the fishery, for although the boat is provided with a large 
shoulder-of-mutton sail, it often enough happens that the 
oars have to be resorted to in order to reach the supposed 
haunts of the fish, and always as a general practice when 
the nets are being “shot ”—that is, paid overboard. Dur- 
ing late years the labour of herring-fishing has been 
greatly augmented by the increased quantity of netting 
which is thought to be necessary as compared with the 
net power employed twenty-five or thirty years ago. Some 
very interesting details regarding the nets used by the 
herring fleet were collected and published by the Com- 
missioners who inquired into the condition of the Scottish 
herring-fisheries six years ago. As giving some idea of 
the labour which the nightly distribution of the netting 
entails, we beg to lay before our readers the following 
summary of figures, relating to the increase of net power, 
and the revolution which has been caused by the substi- 
tution of finely-woven cotton for hemp nets :— 
Twenty years ago a boat carried 24 nets made of hemp, 
each net forty yards long, with 28 or 29 meshes to the 
yard, 10 to 12 score meshes deep, and weighing 25 lbs. 
Each boat carries now 50 to 60 nets made of cotton, 
each net 60 yards long, with 35 meshes to the yard, 
18 score meshes deep, and weighing 12 to 14 lbs. A boat, 
in other words, used to carry 960 yards of netting ; it now 
carries 3,300 yards. The nets used to be about six or seven 
yards, they are now over ten yards deep. They used to 
present a catching surface of 3000 square yards ; they now 
present a catching surface of 33,000 square yards. 
