388 COMMON SALMON. Class IV. 



Capture. The capture in the Tweed, about the month 

 of July, is prodigious ; in a good fishery, often 

 a boat load, and sometimes nearly two, are 

 taken in a tide ; some few years ago there were 

 above seven hundred fishes taken at one hawl, 

 but from fifty to a hundred is very frequent : 

 the coopers in Berxvick then begin to salt both 

 Salmon and Gilses in pipes, and other large ves- 

 sels, and afterwards barrel* them to send abroad, 

 having then far more than the London markets 

 can take off their hands. 



Most of the salmon taken before April, or to 

 the setting in of the warm weather, is sent fresh 

 to London in baskets, unless now and then the 

 vessel is disappointed by contrary winds, of 

 sailing immediately; in that case the fish is 

 brought ashore again to the coopers' offices, boil- 

 ed, pickled, and kitted, and sent to the London 

 markets by the same ship, and fresh salmon put 

 in the baskets in lieu of the stale ones. At the 

 beginning of the season, when a ship is on the 

 point of sailing, a fresh clean salmon will sell 

 from a shilling to eighteen pence a pound, and 

 most of the time that this part of the trade is 

 carried on, the prices are from five to nine shil- 



* The salmon barrel holds above forty-two gallons wine 

 measure. 



