38 THE HERRING FISHERIES. 



have many hands at work, for, unless the herrings be in 

 pickle the same day of. arrival, the officer will not brand 

 them, or at least is supposed to see that this requirement 

 is fulfilled. 



This brand question has been a bone of contention and 

 source of controversy for many years, and it is unfortu- 

 nately branded itself by many fishermen and large curing- 

 firms as a useless and misleading system, and the question 

 has now come to be whether it should be retained or 

 dispensed with. The old Scotch Fishery Board was esta- 

 blished in 1808, but it seems probable that this vexed 

 question may be successfully handled by the re-arrange- 

 ments of the Fishery Board of 1882. As the case stands, 

 the duties of the Board are the branding of the herrings 

 according to quality, together with a collection of statistics 

 as to the fishery itself. 



Many of the firms who stand upon the merits of their 

 own productions have a strong case in point of various 

 classes of cured fish, which at the same time would not be 

 unimpaired by a British brand, and, to say the least, would 

 look all the better. 



The Stettin Herring Report for last season, dated 

 November, states that the supplies of Scotch herring 

 brings the import up to "85,553 barrels crownfulls, against 

 87,238 barrels in 1881 ; 48,751 barrels unbranded fulls 

 against 32,377; 46,112 barrels crown matties against 

 50,902 ; 42,213 barrels unbranded matties against 30,829; 

 7802 barrels crown and unbranded mixed against 5921, 

 and 12,482 barrels crown and unbranded spents against 

 I 3 2 79; 3656 turnbellies in barrels against 2,919 246,559 

 barrels in all, against 223,465 barrels in 1881. 



" This year's import is now considerably larger than the 

 total of last year, and will be still increased by about 



