If oak billets or logs are used they burn comparatively slowly. The smoke, therefore, is not so hot and, since slow combustion in this case probably means more complete combustion, the proportion of resinous constituents in the smoke is liable to be considerably diminished. When oak billets are used, therefore, curing takes place much more slowly. The temperature in the smoke house will also depend very much upon the prevailing weather temperature outside. In cold weather it is difficult to keep the temperature up sufficiently. The curing takes longer, and results in a hard cured product. In very warm weather, on the other hand, it is difficult to keep the temperature down, and a “fired” fish is sometimes produced, i.e. one which is half-cooked and soft. Such a fish is clearly unsuitable for packing for export. Generally speaking, the temperature of the smoke should be such that the curing takes about 10 days. After smoking, the fish are taken off the speets and selected according to quality. Those which are large and perfect fetch a better price, and command an entirely different market from those which are damaged or broken. During the smoking of red herrings, the fires are lit each night, and simply allowed to burn themselves out. =Bloaters.= There are two kinds of bloaters: those intended for the home trade and those intended for the Mediterranean trade. For the home trade the herring is lightly salted by immersing it in brine for two hours or less. It is then dried in the smoke-house for one night, using billets. Unlike “reds” or kippers, it is not cured by the smoke, but simply dried. The bloaters for the Mediterranean trade are salted in concrete tanks in exactly the same way as red herrings, but, instead of being smoke-_cured_ for 10 days or so, they are simply smoke-_dried_ for two days. =Kippers.= Kippering is the only process in the herring industry in which the fish are split before curing. Fresh herrings (sometimes over-day herrings) are bought early in the morning from the drifters and taken to the curing yard. They are split down the back, close to the backbone, and gutted and thrown into large, open baskets. The basket and its contents (about 50 herrings) are then plunged into a tank of running water, and violently agitated to wash blood and slime from the fish. The fish are then thrown into brine in large tanks about 6 ft. by 5 ft. by 4 ft., until the tank is full. Salt is then sprinkled on the surface, and the fish are left from half to one hour, according to their size.