56 The Commercial Products of the Sea. 



bleed each herring, use the best quality of salt, and take 

 the greatest care in the manipulation. 



The herring is a very fat, oily fish, and unless carefully 

 and rapidly cured with salt, becomes soon rancid and 

 unfit for use. The herrings formerly cured in Scotland 

 were not gutted and bled with a knife like the Dutch 

 herrings, but were cured intact as they came out of the 

 sea. No time was limited for putting the fish into salt ; 

 everything was done there as here, in the most slovenly 

 manner ; and while the Dutch herring found a ready 

 market all over the continent, the Scotch found none, and 

 the consumption was almost entirely confined to the home 

 market. 



The great advantage of the fishery inspectors now is, that 

 they perambulate the curers' yards while the operation of 

 curing is going on. They see that the women gut, salt, and 

 pack the herrings properly, and within the time prescribed 

 by the statute. They also take care that every cask shall 

 contain at least 32 gallons, and that the full fish be sepa- 

 rated from the lank or spawned fish. It requires 12 days 

 to cure the herrings properly ; at the expiration of that 

 time the casks are opened again, when the fish are found 

 swimming in the pickle, which is formed by the salt and 

 the blood of the fish. The superfluous pickle is then drawn 

 off, and the casks are filled quite full with herrings. The 

 effect of the salt upon the herrings is to compress them 

 into much smaller bulk, so that a cask which has been 

 packed quite full of fresh fish, the day they were landed, at 

 the end of 1 2 days is only about two-thirds full ; or, in 

 other words, 100 barrels of fresh salted fish will only yield 

 70 barrels of well-packed cured fish. 



The French Herring Fishery. The herring fishery 

 known in France in the eleventh" century was long ex- 



