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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