CHAPTER XIII 



THE HERRING AND OTHER FISH 

 BY W. T. GRENFELL 



THE immense value of the herring to the world has been 

 known for centuries. One thousand years ago our ances- 

 tors in England knew its virtues. To-day it is of no less, 

 but rather of greater, importance. With the increasing 

 population of the earth's surface, with the ever growing 

 need for food-supplies, we can ill afford to neglect any pre- 

 caution that might tend to the development and main- 

 tenance of so immensely valuable an industry as that of 

 catching herring. In this Labrador once had its share. 

 Alas, to-day the glory of the Labrador herring-fishery has 

 departed, and only a few paltry barrels find their way to 

 the markets. 



So important has this industry been, that Professor Hux- 

 ley calculated that at least three billion herrings were, in an 

 average year, killed for food of man in the North Sea and 

 the open Atlantic. As these herring average eight ounces 

 at a minimum, the immense weight of food, one billion five 

 hundred million pounds, speaks for itself of its importance 

 to the human race. For herring is a fat fish. Lying 

 in Lerwick Harbour, among nine hundred herring boats, 

 I have seen the oil set free in the splitting of captured her- 

 ring cover the surface of that immense harbour so thickly 

 that, though the vessels would be sailing in and out with a 

 stiff breeze, not a ripple of any sort would be visible. It left 



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