UNUTILIZED FISHERIES RESOURCES 49 



Canadian It has been claimed that the Canadian herring could 



Good as '^ not realize anything like the price of the Scotch and 



British Norwegian fish and it was said among fishing people 



that the Canadian herring were not the right quality in their fresh 

 condition to make the best herring, so that you could not expect them to 

 rank alongside the Scottish herring. But Mr. Cowie proved abundantly 

 that the Canadian herring when properly handled, would realize the 

 same price as the Scotch herring and instead of bringing $2.25 to $5.00 

 a barrel they could bring $10.00 to $11.00. Indeed, I believe Mr. 

 Cowie got $15.00 a barrel for some herring he put up. Although the 

 experiment was somewhat limited, yet, as Mr. Cowie claimed in his 

 report of 1905, ten barrels put up properly and proving the quality of the 

 fish are as good as a thousand in demonstrating why Canadian herring 

 have not had the repute they should have had in the markets, owing 

 to the careless and unscientific methods of curing and want of knowl- 

 edge as to how to place the herring in the market. That our herrings 

 are excellent is proved by the fact that, at the present moment, 

 important men from Philadelphia, Chicago, and other great 

 centres — I met them the other day in Halifax — are in the Mari- 

 time provinces anxious to see these fish of ours put up in the proper 

 way and are prepared to help in the packing of them. Some Philadel- 

 phia firms are now packing our herring in the Scottish style and 

 I met an important Chicago buyer the other day who told me that 

 he was prepared to give an order for 50,000 barrels of Scotch her- 

 ring from Canada. I hardly like to mention the price, but $25.00 a 

 barrel was mentioned as possible for the best Scotch herring just now 

 in Chicago. That is like a fairy story now, when we think of former 

 prices prevailing. The main causes of this inferior reputation of our 

 herring are, first, wrong methods of fishing, the fish being taken inshore 

 when in poor condition instead of outside; second, inefficient handling 

 by fishermen, the scales being knocked off and the fish spoiled ; third, 

 the curing of t^e catches by the fishermen themselves which is an unsat- 

 isfactory method; fourth, the absence of selection of the fish when 

 packed, poor grading and handling generally, resulting in an inferior 

 product ; fifth, the inferior barrels or packages that are used, and the 

 lack of care of the fluid or pickle, which often escapes and leaves the 

 herring dry or, at any rate, much deteriorated. 



Improved Meth- '^^^ ^"""^^ ^^^ ^^^^ difficuUies.I need hardly enumer- 

 ods of Handling ate. They are that drift nets should be used with the 

 Herring proper mesh, so that fat, non-spawning herring which 



are not yet quite mature, or full, hard-roed herring should be captured 



