KING HERRING 



725 



salt herring to ports on the Mediter- 

 ranean and Baltic seas. 



Holland has maintained her supremacy 

 in herring among her continental neigh- 

 bors, but in recent times has been sur- 

 passed by England and Scotland. 



Vlaardingen, situated on the Maas a 

 few miles below Rotterdam, is the center 

 of the herring trade. There the herring 

 boats fit out, there they land their catch, 

 and there are the substantial houses in 

 which the fish are prepared for shipment. 

 Both steam and sail vessels are employed 

 in the fishery, the former chiefly in the 

 offshore operations in the North Sea. 

 The cotton gill-nets used are 360 meshes 

 deep and 720 meshes long, and are so ar- 

 ranged with corks and leads that they 

 sink six feet below the surface. As from 

 80 to 150 nets are set at one time, it ap- 

 pears that the total length of netting used 

 by each vessel is from ij4 to nearly 3 

 miles. 



In 1905 the Dutch herring fishery 

 yielded $4,447,470. This sum repre- 

 sented 114,492,000 herring caught in the 

 Zuyder Zee and 608,081 barrels of salted 

 herring caught in the North Sea. The 

 aggregate weight of the product was over 

 200,000,000 pounds. 



That procedure which, more than any- 

 thing else, has given to the Dutch her- 

 ring their well-merited reputation for 

 quality is the dressing and salting of the 

 fish immediately after the nets are hauled 

 on board the vessels. Provided with a 

 short knife, tied to the third and fourth 

 fingers of the right hand by a string at- 

 tached to the handle, the fishermen thrust 

 the knife through the gill cavities of the 

 herring, and in withdrawing it cut and 

 bear away the gills, heart, esophagus, and 

 pectoral fins. The opening of the large 

 blood-vessels leads to free bleeding, and 

 as a result the flesh becomes pale, 

 whereas in the Scotch fishery the cutting 

 is done after the blood has clotted, and 

 the flesh remains dark reddish. The 

 Dutch fishermen become very expert in 

 cutting, and some of them can cut 1,200 

 fish an hour. As soon as the herring are 

 thus dressed they are salted in barrels 

 and stored on board until the end of the 

 trip. 



It is a matter of some local interest to 

 know that many of the barrels in which 

 the Dutch pack their pickled herring and 

 send them all over the world are made 

 from oak staves imported from New 

 York, Baltimore, and Newport News. 

 The hoops are made from willow trees 

 grown on the dikes. 



Some very ancient customs connected 

 with the herring fishery are still observed 

 in more or less modified form. The land- 

 ing of the first haul of herring in a town 

 was the occasion for a general holiday 

 and merrymaking. The fish dealers in 

 some places used to offer a ducat apiece 

 for the first fish caught, and the first her- 

 ring of the season was placed in a deco- 

 rated car at The Hague and taken in 

 pomp to the king, who presented 500 

 florins to the fortunate fishermen. 



NORWAY 



While the cod overshadows all other 

 fishes of Norway, the herring ranks sec- 

 ond in importance, being taken in larger 

 quantities and having" greater value than 

 all the remaining water products com- 

 bined. The fish is found along the en- 

 tire coast, and is caught for market from 

 the Skager Rak to North Cape, but the 

 principal fishing is in the districts of Sta- 

 vanger, Bergen, Romsdal, Trondhjem,, 

 and Nordland. 



Herring fishing on the Norwegian 

 coast has a very romantic aspect. The 

 fjords and bays where the fish are found 

 are picturesque in the extreme, and most 

 of the boats are the old Viking type. 



The Norwegians classify their herring 

 as spring herring or spawn herring, sum- 

 mer herring or fat herring, and brisling 

 or small herring, the aggregate catch and 

 value of these being in the order named. 



In capturing herring set gill-nets, 

 drift gill-nets, and sweep-seines are used. 

 The usual apparatus for the North Sea 

 and other open waters is the drift-net. 

 Sweep-seines and chains of set-nets are 

 often employed to barricade schools of 

 herring that have wandered or been 

 scared into a cove or an arm of a fjord. 

 The most interesting type of net in the 

 Norwegian herring fishery, however, is 

 the "synkenot," a piece of netting about 



