THE RISE OF THE HERRING FISHERIES 127 



of the Scottish cured herring, and the exports for selected periods 

 are given : — 



Scottish Cured Herring 

 (all figures are averages expressed in barrels) 



Percentage of Total Exports 



The year 1873 is selected because it was then that the German 

 herring fishery was established. 



England 



In 1913 the English herring fisheries produced 7,313,425 cwt. of 

 herring, valued at £2,325,084. "The predominance of the east coast 

 will be seen from the following detailed returns : east coast, 

 6,935.41 jcwt., west coast, 275,633 cwt. and south coast, 102,380 cwt. 



The value of the fish is that when first landed, there are no 

 statistics of the cured herring trade published by the Board of 

 Agriculture and Fisheries, and no estimate is possible of the value 

 of the cured' ptoduct. Herring is the only fish which is cured to 

 any considerable extent in' England, and according to the Census 

 of Production Tables (1907), 466,000 cwt. and 521,000 barrels of 

 herring were cured in England in that year ; this total including 

 kippers, bloaters and reds. The value of the cured herring is given 

 as £737.000- 



The headquarters of. the English herring fishery have always 

 been at Yarmouth,^ and there is a considerable volume of docu- 

 mentary evidence as to its antiquity. These records go back to 

 the eleventh century or even earlier.* 



1 There is much interesting information about the Yarmouth fisheries in The 

 Herring, by A. M. Samuel. London. John Murray, 1918. 



' See J. M. Mitchell, The Herring, its Natural History and National Importance, 

 Edinburgh, 1864, p. 136. Mitchell is, however, not very reliable. In his statement 

 about Dunwich he makes four errors (p. 136). Dunwick should be Dunwich, Norfolk 

 should be Suffolk, 2400 herrings annually should be 24,000 herrings annually, and 

 finally he misquotes the page in Anderson's History oj Commerce, from which he 

 derives his (mis)information. 



