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XXllI. — On Increasiiuj our Home Production of Poultrij. By 

 John Algernon Clarke. 



The amount of our annual poultry-produce remains a secret 

 to the present day. Spackman, in his ' Analysis of the Occu- 

 pations of the People,' lumps this item along with " milk, fruit, 

 and vegetables.'' Porter, in his ' Progress of the Nation,' values 

 our import of Irish eggs at 100,000/. yer annum; and McCulloch, 

 in his ' Statistics of the British Empire,' affords us the very 

 precise information, that " turkeys, geese, and ducks, are reared 

 in all parts of the country in considerable quantities ; but 

 common fowls are by far the most numerous and valuable." 

 Like many other writers, he assigns large numbers of Dorking 

 fowls to the town of that name, and seems impressed with the 

 fact of their having five claws to a foot ; he does not forget the 

 "barbarous" plucking of live Lincolnshire geese; he notes that 

 " ducks are raised in large quantities at Aylesbury ; " and re- 

 minds us of the time when, " at Christmas, all the stage-coaches 

 from Norfolk and Suffolk to London, excepting the mail, were 

 freighted with turkeys, sometimes to the total exclusion of 

 passengers." Even the London consumption of poultry is an 

 unknown quantity, for though Dr. Wynter, in his ' Curiosities 

 of Civilisation,' enumerates 2,000,000 fowls, 350,000 ducks, 

 104,000 turkeys, and 100,000 geese, as sold yearly in Leaden- 

 hall and Newgate Markets, the list takes no account of the birds 

 which either go direct to the retailers or are sent from the 

 country as presents. 



We do know that the demand for birds, for eggs, and feathers, 

 greatly exceeds the home supply ; and that, so far from over- 

 taking the appetite of the people, our poultry-keepers permit 

 an ever-increasing importation to confront them in their own 

 markets. Thus the annual import of eggs from the Continent 

 averaged 73,000,000, from 1843 to 1847 ; it averaged 103,000,000 

 during the next five years ; 147,000,000 for the next five years ; 

 and 103,000,000 for the next five years. In 1861, we received 

 from abroad 203,313,360 eggs; in 1863, the number was 

 266,929,680 ; while in 1865 it amounted to 364,000,000— that 

 is, about a million eggs per day ! But in the SI days of May, 

 1866, the import exceeded the astonishing quantity of 56,000,000 ; 

 and in the first five months of this year, the number was above 

 196,000,000 — more than we received in an entire year before 

 1861. 



The average price fixed at the Custom-house for the compu- 

 tation of the real value of the eggs, was, in 1854, as low as 

 4^. i^d. per ten dozen ; but owing to the rise in price since that 



