Smith's Knoll—there will be up to 700/8U0 British vessels alone, in addition
to those of Dutch, German and other nationalities collected together.
At night the vast stretch of troubled water reflecting the ships lights is
one of the most fantastically beautiful scenes that you could witness the
world over.

Here is a description by one who spent a night on a herring drifter :—

"Just as the dawn was breaking, we all stood to, to help with the
pulling in of the nets. I have seldom seen anything which was quite
so physically and coldly lovely. For the first fifty yards or so of the nets
we found nothing. Then quite suddenly we began to pull on board
sheets and sheets of shimmering silver. My back was soon aching,
my hands and arms torn and bruised with the net. But throughout
the long hours which it took to haul in the net, I was never tired of
watching the harvest."

If the catch is big enough to warrant it, the drifter makes for port
with her cargo; if not the skipper steams about until he finds another
suitable pitch and once more sinks his nets.

Ashore the herrings are auctioned on the quayside immediately the
drifter arrives, so the boats race back, for it is usual for the catches to obtain
the highest prices from the buyers at the opening sales. So you see that the
herring is really the freshest fish that you can buy—it is caught at night and
landed the next morning.

The best of the catch is bought for the home market, to be sold as
fresh herrings or to be kippered or bloatered. As soon as a buyer has made
his purchases they are swiftly packed with ice in boxes, labelled and rushed
off to the waiting fish train.   Time is indeed money at a fishing port.

The greater part of the catch, however, is salted down into barrels by
Scottish girls who go from port to port from the Orkneys to Lowestoft
wherever the herrings are most plentiful. These cured herrings, of course,
are for our export trade. You have probably all seen pictures of these
fisher lassies and read of the incredible speed with which thev gut the
herrings and sort them into trade sizes.

THE  HERRING  INDUSTRY TO-DAY

By the beginning of the present century, the British herring industry
had grown enormously and nearly 80 per cent, of the catch was salted for
the export trade.

Each year the demand from abroad for cured herrings increased. The
sale of fresh and smoked herrings at home, if not large, appeared to be steady.
The British drifter fleet expanded year by year until it comprised at least
1,500 drifters, manned by some 15,000 fishermen, while in addition the
industry provided work for thousands of men and women on shore. In
1913, the peak year of the industry, no fewer than 12,000,000 cwts. of herring
were landed and sold.

Then came the War. There is small need to emphasise the part played
by our fishermen then. Our shores were patrolled by fishermen from the
earliest days of the War, "the first to offer service to their country, the last