KING HERRING 



719 



Mediterranean trade. There are few 

 kinds of preserved fish which have 

 greater thirst-producing properties ; and 

 they became favorites at home at a very- 

 early date, and are frequently referred to 

 in the poetic literature of the sixteenth 

 and seventeenth centuries, when it was 

 said of many people that they were 

 "neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red her- 

 ring." 



The handling, smoking, curing, pack- 

 ing, and shipping of herring give employ- 

 ment to a veritable army, a large propor- 

 tion of which are women. In the Scotch 

 herring industry the shoresmen are 

 drawn mostly from the Highlands and 

 the Hebrides and number fully 50,000, 

 and the curing business of both England 

 and Ireland is dominated by Scotchmen. 



The herring fishery of England and 

 Wales in 1906 yielded about 328,000,000 

 pounds of fish, for which the catchers 

 were paid $6,595,930, the largest price 

 ever received in the history of the fishery. 

 As showing the preponderating impor- 

 tance of the North Sea as a fishing 

 ground, it may be noted that while the 

 south and west coasts of England pro- 

 duced 25,000,000 pounds of herring, the 

 east coast is credited with 303,000,000 

 pounds. The best year in the history of 

 the Scotch fishery was 1907, when over 

 631,000,000 pounds of herring, valued at 

 $9,081,300, were taken by 25,000 fisher- 

 men in 5,600 vessels and boats. The 

 quantity of herring then cured was 

 2,578,268 barrels, which brought the 

 packers $13,148,385. Of the foregoing 

 627,100 barrels were exported to Russia 

 and 1,186,100 barrels to Germany, about 

 fifty per cent of the latter quantity being 

 reexported to Russia. 



The herring represents more to the 

 Irish fishermen than any other product 

 of the waters, and its value is nearly one- 

 third of the entire yield of the fishing in- 

 dustry of the country. The fish is taken 

 with drift-nets around the entire coast, 

 but the largest catch is made on the east 

 and north shores. In 1907 the output 

 was nearly 31,000,000 pounds, for which 

 the fishermen received over $500,000. 

 The principal centers of the fishery are 



Downings Bay, Ardglass, Howth, and 



Donegal. 



FRANCE 



France is one of the great fishing na- 

 tions of the world, and herring is her 

 principal water product. It is true that 

 the value of the French cod fishery some- 

 what exceeds that of the sea-herring, but 

 nearly all of the cod are caught off Ice- 

 land and Newfoundland, leaving the her- 

 ring easily the leading fish of home and 

 adjacent waters. An established herring 

 fishery was carried on in the North Sea 

 by Dieppe and Rouen fishermen as early 

 as the eleventh century. It had attained 

 great importance by the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, but declined during and after the 

 Napoleonic wars. 



The French herring fishery is now in a 

 very flourishing condition and is more 

 extensive than ever before, so that in 

 continental Europe France is surpassed 

 only by Holland as a producer of herring. 

 The fishery is naturally divisible into 

 two sections, one conducted in the North 

 Sea and the other along the shores of the 

 north and west coasts of France. The 

 leading center is Boulogne, with Fecamp 

 a close second. Other important points 

 are Calais, Staples, Saint- Valery-sur- 

 Somme, Dieppe, Honfleur, Trouville, 

 Villerville, and fitretat. 



The year 1905 was the most successful 

 recorded up to that time, and for it de- 

 tailed official statistics are available. It 

 appears that 10,880 fishermen then set 

 their nets for the herring hosts, and that 

 more than 163,000,000 pounds of these 

 fish were marketed. Two-thirds of the 

 product came from the coastal waters 

 and one-third from that greatest of all 

 international fishing grounds, the North 

 Sea. The substantial sum of 18,260,000 

 francs inured to the French herring fish- 

 ermen in 1905. 



One of the most interesting and far- 

 reaching episodes in French history hap- 

 pened in the year 1428 and was directly 

 connected with the herring. The Eng- 

 lish, who were then besieging Orleans, 

 which was held by the French, sought to 



