THE HERRING FISHERY. n 



and poured on the nets in a large tub till they are well 

 saturated. This process is repeated once a month while Method of 



tanning by 



the nets are new, afterwards the periods can be lengthened ; cutch. 

 but if nets have not been properly cured they will rot in a 

 very short time. 



Different substances, such as alum, oils, dyes, tar, have 

 been tried for curing purposes, but nothing has yet been 

 found to equal cutch. 



Small trawl-nets were in use before the year I have men- Trawl-nets for 

 tioned, chiefly for fishing saithe. When these fish came close 

 to the shore a few herrings were sometimes caught in this 

 kind of trawl, but they were not looked after. About this 

 time a fisherman belonging to Tarbet on Loch Fyne lost part 

 of his drift-nets, so he made a large trawl of what remained. 



The first night he went out he secured a large haul of Trawling for 

 herrings with this net, about four hundred maise (five commenced, 

 hundred herrings being a maise). This was a turning 

 point on the road to improvement in our herring fishing, 

 proving in this case the truth of the old adage, " Necessity 

 is the mother of invention." 



About this time a number of fishermen, the writer being The writer's 



experience in 

 one, began to make trawl-nets. In the beginning of 1849 I 1849. 



had in one haul upwards of three hundred crans of very large 

 herrings (about five hundred to the cran). We drew, how- 

 ever, only a very small price for them, about ^s. a cran, as we 

 did not know of any fresh market for them, and curers were 

 afraid to buy, as they thought that trawled herrings would 

 not cure. One buyer sent a few of them to England, and English 



market 



next y:ar lh^ result was that we had buyers from different opened, 

 parts of England, including London ; prices rose to "js. and Its beneficial 

 8s. per hundred, or from 35^. to 4Os. per cran, showing that 

 there must have been a great demand for large herrings in 

 England. 



