TEN YEARS OF THE HERRING FISHERY.
THE Commissioners of the Scottish Fishery Board seem anxious to prove that the herring fishery of last year was not so bad as it was at one time represented to be, and in par- ticular that it was not less than an average of the previous ten years' fishings, which have been summed up and divided, in order to show the fact. The Official Report of the fishing of 1877, just issued, states that the total number of barrels cured last year was 847,718, being 249,521 barrels more than were cured in the pre- ceding season. Only cured herrings, it is right to say, are taken account of by the officers of the Fishery Board, as it has not been found practicable to enumerate herrings caught and sold fresh ; but it may be taken for granted that year by year half as many are sold fresh as are sold cured, and as each barrel holds about seven hundred fish, it is obvious that the total number captured is very considerable. Taking the average of the ten years from 1867 to 1876, the number of single herrings caught in each year to be sold cured or fresh may be fairly estimated at 843,250,800. At the modest price of one halfpenny each, it will be apparent that the money value of that number of fish amounts to £1,756,722 sterling.
There took place what may be called a "scare " in 1876, when the herring harvest was, comparatively speaking, a failure, only 598,197 barrels being cured in that year,—a sad falling-off, com- pared with the seasons of 1875, 1874, and 1873, when the cure was represented by 942,980, 1,000,561, and 939,233 barrels respectively. The disparity of the catch of 1876, as com- pared with preceding years, was attributed to the inclement weather which prevailed during the period over which the capture of the fish extended, and it was, at any rate, so far remarkable,. that the fishing of that year was the smallest recorded since the year 1859, which, again, was the smelled cure since 1837. The most remarkable feature of the herring fishery is not, however, that the take of one season should sometimes be a hundred or even two hundred thousand barrels less than that of another sea- son, but that we should annually obtain so few fish, in proportion to the number of boats and men employed in their capture, and the enormous breadth and depth of netting which is nightly thrown into the water for their destruction. The highest cure which has been recorded amounts to a little over a million barrels, but it is no exaggeration to say that we place netting in the water every season sufficient to take three times that quantity of herrings, if these fish be as numerous as naturalists say they are. As to that, some evidence is given in a recent Parliamentary publitation, which contains the Report of a Commission appointed to inquire into the Herring Fishery. We are led to belieVe by the Blue-book in question that the herrings of the sea are so wonderfully numer- ous that it is impossible for man, with all his art, to make any impression upon the shoals ; and that the sea-birds eat a quantity which, when compared with all that are captured for human food, shows that man only obtains a mere driblet out of the total stock. The figures which hare been printed are really ao remarkable as to be worth repeating. It is assunied, fer instance, that Scot& gannets consume more than 1,110,000,000 herrings per annum! This calculation is based on the bird population of Ailsa Craig, in the Frith of Clyde, being 10,000, and that each gannet consumes six herrings a day, which amounts for the whole to 21,600,000 herrings a year ! Waiving the 'question as to whether or not the gannets, being migratory, live on Ailsa Craig for the year round, as they must have food wherever they are, although, not neces- sarily herrings, the calculation which, we believe, was first made regarding the lonely island of St. Eilda, and Moreover, only made for the number of days during which the birds inhabited that sea-girt eminence, is a stalking one, but not more so than that which sums up the devastation committed on the herring shoals by the codfish and its congeners. It is calculated that there will be about 70,000,000 of cod, ling, and hake in existence off the coasts and islands of Scotland, and if each of these fishes con- sumes 420 herrings a year, the total destruction from that source will amount to 29,400,000,000 per annum ! These figures, so poetic in their magnitude, afford a wonderful evidence of the reproductive power of the herring ; and if they are not fallacious, tend to show that man, with all his cunning devices, is scarcely worth considering as a factor in the account.
Returning, however, to what, after the consideration of figures representing such a vast amount of piscine wealth, we may call the prosaic aspect of the subject, the question of why we, with our ever-increasing machinery of capture, obtain so small a share of this bountiful wealth of the waters, must again be asked. The chief feature of the herring fishery presented mow, as compared with the fishery of twenty years ago, lies in the enormous exten- sion of the netting, which has increased fivefold since the period indicated. The 7,000 boats now fishing for herrings in the Scottish seas present to the fish an aggregate of 230,000,000 square yards of netting. It will give some idea of what that power of capture represents, if we state that the Scottish herring nets of to-day could be made to reach in a continuous line for nearly 12,000 miles, and cover a superficial area of seventy square miles ! As to the net power of individual boats now and twenty years ago, we take the following figures from the Blue-book referred to :—" Twenty years ago, a boat carried 24 nets made of hemp, each net 40 yards long, with 28 or 29 meshes to the yard, 10 to 12 score meshes deep, and weighing 25 pounds. Each boat now carries 50 to 60 nets made of cotton, each net 60 yards long, with 35 meshes to the yard, 18 score meshes deep, and weighing 12 to 14 pounds. A boat, in other words, used to carry 960 yards of netting ; it now carries 3,300 yards !" The power of capture has, therefore, been increased in a fivefold ratio, but the result in actual capture has not responded. There are, we believe, fewer boats engaged in the herring fishery now than there were twenty years ago ; but allowing for that, the take of herrings is im- measurably below what it ought to be. The average take of the last ten years, according to the Commissioners, is 803,096 barrels, and for the ten years preceding 1858 it was, in round figures, 640,000 barrels of cured fish, so that the increase in the capture of herrings has nothing like responded to the multiplica- tion of the netting. The wind and the weather are often blamed for the shortcoming in the take of particular years, but the wind and the weather over two periods each of ten years will be found to be very much alike, and the capture must have suffered as much from these causes in the years preceding 1858 as in the ,years which haVe followed. We should like, were we able, to adopt some of the many explanations that have been given as to the failure of the increased breadth and depth of netting to give us an increased supply of fish, but none of them seem very logical. It is, for instance, asserted that so many boats and so much netting has a tendency to scare away the fish, and yet it is usually on those nights during which the greatest number of boats • are fishing, and the net power consequently largest, that the greatest quantity of fish is taken, both in the aggregate and by individual boats. It can be proved, too, that particular places—or shall we say shoals ?—become affected and decline in productive power. Wick may be taken as an example of what we maintain. Foa a long series of years Wick and Pulteneytown (they adjoin) were the rendezvous of over a thousand boats engaged in fishing for herrings, and a large business was done in cured fish. Wick, in fact, some twelve years ago, was the herring capital of Scotland, and when the Spectator upon one occasion ventured to hint that the scene might one day be changed, and the fishing fall off, as it had been known to do at other centres of herring commerce, it was roundly abused for venturing on such an assumption. Well, it is not for us to strike a fallen enemy, but there are not six hundred boats fishing for curers at Wick and Pulteneytown this season. True, other fishing-places are rising into importance, notably Fraserburgh, where herrings are brought ashore every season which exceed in value the land rental of the great county off the shores of which they are caught. We are glad to think that so much wealth is being so easily obtained. Let the fishermen and curers of Fraserburgh, as the saying is, "make hay whilst the sun shines ;" the shoals which at present fill their boats will undoubtedly fail them some day. What has befallen Wick may befall Fraserburgh.
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