THE FISHERY.

Having given in a former number some account of the natural history of this valuable little creature, we now proceed, in accordance with our promise, to give a description of the various modes of taking and curing it; and as the Dutch were the first to see the importance, and devote themselves to the improvement, of the herring fishery, we shall commence with them.

So early as the year 1307, the Dutch had turned their attention to this subject; and lest any of our more thoughtless or less informed readers should deem the matter one of secondary consideration, or probably of even less, we shall lay before them some statistical accounts of the Dutch fisheries, extracted from returns of the census of the States-General, taken in the year 1669. In that year the total amount of population was 2,400,000.

Of whom were employed as fishermen, and in equipping fishermen with their boats, tackle, conveying of salt, &c.450,000
Employed in the navigation of ships in foreign trade,250,000
Shipwrights, handicraftsmen, and manufacturers,650,000
Inland fishermen, agriculturists, and labourers,200,000
Gentry, statesmen, soldiers, and inhabitants in general,850,000
Total,2,400,000

Thus nearly a fifth of the population of Holland was entirely engaged in and supported by the herring and deep-sea fishery, and thus arose the saying that “the foundations of Amsterdam were laid on herring bones;” and hence did De Witt assert that “Holland derived her main support from the herring fishery, and that it ought to be considered as the right arm of the republic.”

Before Holland was humbled upon the seas, and whilst she was at the pinnacle of her prosperity, she had ten thousand sail of shipping, with 168,000 mariners, afloat. Of these no less than 6400 vessels, with 112,000 mariners, were employed in and connected with the herring fishery alone, “although the country itself affords them neither materials, nor victual, nor merchandise, to be accounted of, towards their setting forth.” When we come to the subject of curing, we shall take occasion to point out the modes by which the Dutch attained their excellence, and established this surprising trade; but at present we have but to describe their manner of fishing.

The Great Fishery commences on the 24th of June, and terminates on the 31st of December, and is carried on in the latitudes of Shetland and Edinburgh, and on the coast of Great Britain, with strong-decked vessels called busses, manned by fourteen or fifteen men, and well supplied with casks, salt, nets, and every material requisite for catching and curing at sea. Each buss has generally fifty, and must not have less than forty nets of 32 fathoms in length each, 8 fathoms in depth, and a buoy-rope of 8 fathoms; an empty barrel less than a herring barrel is attached to each buoy-rope. This fleet of nets, as it is called, is divided by buoys into four parts, by which their position is marked and their taking in facilitated; the buoys at the extreme ends are painted white, with the owners’ and vessels’ names upon them. By the Dutch fishery laws it is provided that the yarn of the nets must be of good unmixed Dutch or Baltic hemp, which must be inspected before use by sworn surveyors; the yarn must be well spun; and each full net, or fourth part of a fleet, must be 740 meshes in length and 68 in depth, and the nets must be inspected and marked before they can be used.

The Dutch always shoot their nets, that is, cast them into the sea, at sunset, and take them in before sunrise. In shooting them they cast them to windward, so that the wind may prevent the vessel from coming upon them. The whole of the nets are attached to four strong ropes joined to each other, and are taken in by means of the capstan, to which four or five men attend, whilst four more shake out the fish.

The Small Fishery, or fresh-herring fishery, is carried on to the east of Yarmouth in deep water, with flat-bottomed vessels without keels, so formed for the purpose of being run ashore in any convenient place.

It is forbidden by the 15th and 16th articles of the Dutch fishery laws to gut the herrings taken by the small fishery either at sea or ashore, under pain of one month’s imprisonment, and a fine of five guilders for every hundred herrings, as well as the confiscation of the herrings, unless special permission has been obtained from the king, at the request of the States.

The Pan Fishery is carried on in the rivers, inland seas, and on the coast of Holland, within three miles of the shore.

The same prohibition, under similar penalties, that exists against curing fish taken in the small fishery, extends to this.

We have given the first place to the Dutch in this account, in consequence of their having been the first to see the importance of the fishery, but they take the lead no longer; the English and Scotch have successfully rivalled them in curing, and for the quantity taken during the season the Norwegians surpass all others. The Norwegian is a wholesale fishery, every description of ship and boat being in demand. They have curing stations on shore, to which the boats bring the fish as fast as they are caught; and there are large vessels with barrels and salt lying out amongst the fishers, buying from those who do not wish to lose time by going ashore. Every description of net, as well as every sort of vessel, is in requisition; some fishing at anchor, some sailing, and others hauling their seines on shore, but the grand method is as follows:—

An immense range of nets with very small meshes so small as to prevent the herrings from fastening in them, is extended round a shoal of fish, and gradually moved towards some creek or narrow inlet of the sea. The nets are drawn close and made fast across the entrance, and the enormous body of herrings thus crowded up into a narrow space is taken out and cured at leisure. This mode of fishing is called a “lock.”

The following passage from a letter written by a gentleman who witnessed the fishery near Hitteroe, to Mr Mitchell of Leith, will give our readers some idea of its extent:—

“On the other side of the Sound we saw what is termed a lock, that is, several nets joined together, forming a bar before a small bay, into which the herrings were crowded. In this place there were several thousand barrels of herrings, so compactly confined together that an oar could stand up in the mass. There were in the neighbourhood of Hitteroe altogether about four or five thousand nets, and about two thousand boats and vessels; and there were caught, according to the opinion of several intelligent persons, this day (24th January 1833), not less than ten thousand barrels.”

The entire quantity taken on the coast of Norway during the fall of 1832 and the spring of 1833 was estimated at 680,000 barrels, which was considered to be a fair average take.

We come now to the home fishery, in which Yarmouth takes the lead in the size of vessels and magnitude of tackle employed. The fishing is carried on by the Yarmouth men in decked vessels called “luggers,” from 20 to 50 tons burthen, having three masts, and rigged with three lugsails, topsails, mizou, foresail, and jib: the crew of the largest consisting of twelve men and a boy, who are paid according to the quantity of fish caught. Each ordinary vessel carries two hundred nets of 48 feet in length and 30 in depth, each having meshes of 1 inch or 1⅛ inch, as usual in herring nets. Of these nets they shoot one hundred at a time, reserving the other hundred for cases of accident or mishap. When launched, each net is attached by two seizings of 1½ inch rope, having a depth of 18 feet, to a four-stranded (generally 4 inch) warp of 3600 feet in length; this warp is made fast to a rope from the bow of the vessel, which in stormy weather can be let out to ease the strain, to the extent of 100 fathoms, or 600 feet. For each net there are two buoys (4-gallon barrels) made fast to the warp, and there are four buoys besides, to mark the distances, two for the quarter and three-quarter stations, painted red and white quarterly, one for the half distance or middle of the fleet, painted half red and half white, and one for the extremity, painted all white; each of them has painted on it the names of the ship, master, owner, and port, in order that they may be restored in case of breaking away during bad weather; and so good an understanding exists upon this subject amongst the fishermen, that the nets are always restored by the finder to the owner upon payment of only 1s. for each net; and no one must suffer a stray net to drift away; if seen, it must be taken in. This fishery commences in the beginning of October, and lasts little more than two months. The nets are shot after the Dutch fashion, at sunset; but if the appearances are favourable, they are taken in once or twice during the night, and again at sunrise. 100 barrels of herrings are frequently taken by these nets at a single haul, and 600 barrels may be considered as a fair average fishing for one vessel during the season. The number of decked vessels employed at Yarmouth alone in the fishery is about 500.

Next, and likely from its steady increase soon to become the first, is the Scotch fishery.

Like the Norwegian, every description of boat and net is to be found employed amongst the Scottish islands, but the most regularly employed vessels are open undecked boats, of 28 to 32 feet in length, or thereabouts, and 9 to 11 feet in breadth, usually rigged with two masts and two sails. They have on board from twelve to thirty nets of from 150 to 186 feet in length each, and from 20 to 31 feet in depth.

From the Report by the Commissioners of the British Herring Fishery, of the fishery of 1838, year ending 5th April 1839, it appears that there were then engaged in the fishery 11,357 boats, decked and undecked, throughout England and Scotland, manned by 50,238 men and boys, and employing 85,573 persons in all, including coopers, packers, curers, and labourers.

Of the entire number of vessels, about 9000 belonged to Scottish ports.

The entire quantity of herrings exported amounted to 239,730½ barrels, of which 195,301 barrels were Scotch; and of those exported, 149,926 barrels were sent to and disposed of in Ireland.

The entire quantity of herrings taken by Scottish boats, and cured both for home use and exportation, was 495,589 barrels; the total by English and Scotch 555,559¾ barrels; but this return does not include the Yarmouth fishery, the herrings there being always smoked, or made into what are called red herrings.

We need not describe the Prussian and other methods, as they resemble some one or other of those already mentioned. Come we now to our own, which we have purposely reserved to the last.

Amongst the fishermen of Ireland, the men of Kinsale have long been the admitted leaders; and the Kinsale hookers are celebrated throughout the nautical world as among the best sea-boats that ever weathered a gale. They are half-decked vessels, with one mast, carrying a fore and aft mainsail, foresail, and jib, and are usually manned by four men and a boy. They are seldom used in the herring fishery, being for the most part confined to the deep-sea line fishery upon the Nymph bank, where cod, ling, hake, haddock, turbot, plaice, &c., abound in such quantity that many persons affirm it to be second only to the banks of Newfoundland. But the usual mode of fishing for herrings, and which is adopted all along the south, south-west, and west coast of Ireland, especially at Valencia and Kenmare, is with the deep-sea seine. This is formed sometimes for the express purpose, but frequently by a subscription of nets. Fifteen men bring a drift-net each, 20 fathoms or 120 feet in length, and 5 fathoms or 30 feet in depth; these are all joined together, five nets in length, and three in depth, so that the whole seine is 600 feet in length and 90 feet in depth, with a cork-rope (that is, a rope having large pieces of cork attached to it at intervals) at the top, and leaden sinkers attached to the foot-rope, which unites all the nets at the bottom. Two warps of 60 fathoms each are requisite, and there are brails (small half-inch ropes) attached to the foot-rope, which are of use to haul upon, in order to purse up the net and prevent the fish from escaping.

The seine is shot from a boat whilst it is being pulled round the shoal of fish. All having been thrown over, the warp is hauled upon until the net is brought into ten fathoms’ depth of water, when the brails and foot-rope are hauled in, and the fish is tucked into the largest boat. In this manner 80,000 to 100,000 herrings (about 100 barrels) may be taken at a haul. But where the people are too poor to supply themselves with nets or boats, many contrivances are made use of. For boats, the curragh, made of wicker and covered with a horse’s skin, or canvass pitched, is used, and often even this cannot be had; sometimes the people load a horse with the nets, mount him and swim him out, shooting the nets from his back; and for nets, in many places, the people use their sheets, blankets, and quilts, which they subscribe and sew together, often to the number of sixty, and the fish thus taken are divided in due proportion amongst the subscribers.

After the foreign statistics which we have laid before our readers, they will doubtless expect us to inform them how many vessels and what number of hands are now employed in the Irish fishery. This, however, we are unable to do. The Commissioners of the Herring Fishery have their jurisdiction confined to Scotland and England, almost exclusively to Scotland, the fishery of which is thriving under their fostering care in a most surprising manner. By their judicious attention to the encouragement of careful curing, and the distribution of small aids in money to poor fishermen, the number of boats employed in 1839 exceeded that of the former year by 78; and the progressive increase in the fishery is fully exemplified by the following table, showing the quantity of herrings cured during the five years preceding the return now before us:—

Year1835277,317barrels.
”1836497,614¾”
”1837397,829¼”
”1838507,774¾”
”1839555,559¾”

By this table it appears that the Scotch fishery has doubled its amount in five years, without any description of bounty being given. It may, however, be as well to state, before concluding this paper, that it appears, by the Reports of the Irish Commissioners, whose sittings terminated in the year 1830, that during the time that Ireland possessed a Fishery Board, the number of persons employed in the fishery had more than doubled. At the time of the first appointment of Commissioners of Irish Fisheries in 1819, the number of men employed was estimated at 30,000. By the first return which they could venture to pronounce accurate, being for the year ending 5th April 1822, the number was 36,192 men; 5th April 1823, the number was 44,892 men, being an increase of 8700; at 5th April 1824, the number was 49,448, being an increase on the preceding year of 4556; 5th April 1825, the number was 52,482, being an increase on the preceding year of 3034; and the numbers went on regularly progressing every year during the existence of the Board, until its termination, as the following extract from the last Report will best exhibit. It is for the year 1830, at which time the bounty had been reduced to one shilling per barrel:—

“The Commissioners have still the gratification to find, from the returns made by the local inspectors, that the number of fishermen still continues to experience a yearly increase. The gross amount, as taken from the returns of the preceding year, was 63,421 men. The gross amount, as taken from the returns of the present year, is 64,771 men, being an increase on the past year of 1350 men.”

By the same report it appeared that the number of decked vessels was 345; tonnage 9810; men 2147—half-decked vessels 769; tonnage 9457; men 3852—row-boats 9522; men 46,212.

The quantity of herrings cured for bounty in the year ending 5th April 1830, was 16,855 barrels, the bounty on which was £842 15s.

The tonnage bounty paid to vessels engaged in the cod and ling fishery was £829 10s; and the bounty on cured cod, &c. was £960.

There is not in the reports that we have seen any attempt at estimating the quantity of herrings caught, which is somewhat extraordinary, considering the accuracy with which the number of fishermen, curers, coopers, &c., was ascertained; but the quantity cured is given above.

Whilst, however, the number of fishermen employed in the fisheries generally, increased so very considerably during the period that the Irish Fishery Board was in operation, it is an extraordinary, and to us inexplicable fact, that the quantity of herrings cured for bounty in any one season never exceeded 16,855 barrels, so that even the high bounty of 4s per barrel was not sufficient to induce the Irish fishermen to cure their herrings in a proper manner. In short, the fishery board, in so far as the primary object of its formation was concerned, was totally inoperative, and the people of this country were as dependent then as now upon the Scotch curers for the requisite supply of the staple luxury of the poorer classes.

It is impossible to say to what extent the fisheries may have fallen off, if at all, in Ireland, since the abolition of the fishery board; but as the quantity of salted herrings imported into Ireland from Scotland has not materially increased since, it may be presumed that as many herrings are caught and cured now as at any former period.

The alleged decline of the Irish fisheries has by many been attributed entirely to the withdrawal of the bounties and the fishery board. But when we consider the exceedingly trifling amount of bounty paid on herrings in any one year, the discontinuance of so small a sum as £842 15s 7d (the amount in 1829-30) could not possibly have any perceptible influence upon a branch of industry which gave employment to 75,366 persons.

Nor could the discontinuance of the grants made for harbours and small loans to poor fishermen have produced any material influence upon the fisheries, as the total amount advanced in ten years for these two objects was only £39,508 18s 2d, or less than £4000 a-year.

There is then but one other point of view in which the withdrawal of the fishery board could have operated injuriously, namely, the absence of that supervision and authority in regulating the fisheries which the officers of the board exercised to a certain extent, and which in our opinion ought to have been continued.

The various modes of curing herrings will form the subject of a future article.

CASTLECOR, A REVERIE,
BY J. U. U.

Ancient oaks of Castlecor,

Which the wreck of weathery war,

Summer’s sun or winter blast,

Chance and change still sweeping past,

Still have left thus hoar and high

While the world hath fleeted by.

Many a race of pride hath run,

Many a field been lost and won;

Many a day of shame and glory

Past into the dream of story,

Since the spring time of your birth

Revelled on this ancient earth.

Well your crown of age ye wear—

High upon this noon-day air,

Broadly waving in the light,

Thickset tufts of verdure bright;

While, beneath, your massive shade

Sleeps upon the ferny glade.

Where the summer sunbeam plays

O’er the long-drawn leafy ways,

Down through tremulous gleams of green,

On some spot at distance seen;

Where the foliage opens brightly,

If the fallow-deer bound lightly;

Well the swiftly passing gleam

Mingles into fancy’s dream,

See in shadowy light appear

Some old hunter of the deer,

Through the stillness of the wood,

Bent in listening attitude;

Then amid the haunted glade

Melt away in distant shade.

Were not life as brief and frail

As a gossip’s idle tale,

What eventful hours might be

Here recalled to memory!

Straight upon the visioned sight,

Through the rifts of leafy light,

Where yon verdurous dusk disparts,

What strange cloud of blackness starts

’Tis the grim and gloomy hold;

Which ruled here in days of old,

Leaving a name where once it stood;

’Tis the “castle in the wood.”

Lo! from parapet and tower

Frowns the pride of ancient power—

Lo! from out the cullised port

Pours the storm of raid or sport;

Haughty eye and ruthless hand

Iron chief and ruthless band;

Well the robber chief I know,

Tracked by many a home of woe.

Onward bound; nor far behind

Swells a murmur on the wind—

From his kerne and lowring prey,

Pride of pastures far away,

Hither bound from foray rude,

To his “castle in the wood.”

Still the pageant nears—but lo;

Fancy shifts the gliding show,

To a sight of gayer mood.

On free air in sunshine glancing,

See a jovial train advancing,

Bright housed steed and palfrey prancing,

Horn and hound and hawk are there,

Spear and scarf, and mantle fair,

Sport and jest, and laughter gay,

Shout and jolly hark away!

On the glittering pageant streams,

Vanishing in golden gleams.

Next across the shadowy lawn,

Cowled and cinctured form glides on

With ruddy cheek though solemn gear,

Full glad it seems of journey done,

That started with the rising sun,

And confident of jovial cheer;

Such never yet was wanting here.

Who follows fast, with footstep light,

And eye of fire, and garment white?

O, now the child of song I know,

For the sun on his tuneful harp is bright!

And free on the wind his long locks flow—

O! glad will they be in yon halls below.

But all is gone—one sober glance

Hath whirled in air the fitful trance,

The visioned wood that fancy ranged,

Is still a wood, but O, how changed!

Ancient Power’s, barbaric sway,

Iron deeds have passed away—

Superstition’s gloomy hour,

With the tyrant’s feudal power—

All have passed!—and in their stead,

Piety with reverent head,

Sense, and mild humanity,

Polished hospitality,

Taste that spreads improvement round,

On the old paternal ground;

And without its blood and crime,

Keeps the grace of elder time.