A nonsense riddle asking how many strawberries grow in the sea, answered with an equally impossible number of herrings in the wood. It is the kind of daft logic that lands best once a child is old enough to catch the joke.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
The man in the wilderness
Asked me
How many strawberries
Grew in the sea.
I answered him
As I thought good,
As many as red herrings
Grew in the wood.
About this rhyme
Text matches exactly: strawberries in the sea, answered with red herrings in the wood.
This is a riddle dressed as a conversation: how many strawberries grow in the sea? The answer matches nonsense with nonsense, as many red herrings as grow in the wood, which is to say none of either. It's a lesson in comebacks as much as counting. Ask the question properly and let a child invent a daft answer before the rhyme gives its own.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition