EXPORT OF EGGS. 7 



cipal item in all the meals. The consumption of eggs, for the 

 whole kingdom, including the capital, is estimated at 7, 23 1 , 1 60,000 ; 

 add to this number those exported, and those necessary for repro- 

 duction, and it will result that 7,380,952,000 eggs were laid in 

 France during the year 1835." 



M'Culloch, in his Dictionary of Commerce, states, that France 

 exported, for the consumption of London and Brighton, alone, up- 

 wards of 76,000 worth of eggs ; and this branch of commerce 

 has, at least, doubled, since the period, when M'Culloch wrote. 



T. Rutherford, Esq., has favoured me with a copy of his Essay 

 on the Progress of Agriculture, read by him at a meeting of the 

 Royal Dublin Society, in which he says, there were exported from 

 all Ireland, in 1835 



Quantity. Value. 



Number of eggs ,,:" . , . 52,244,800 87,352 



Crates 275 37,600 



Boxes . . . - . . 10,625 31,037 



Total . , . '.,' V 155,989 



No mention was made of fowl ; but 6,432 cwt. of feathers were 

 exported in the same year, valued at 32,666. In the memoir 

 published with the " Ordnance Survey," it is stated, that from 

 the town of Londonderry, alone, are annually exported 60,000 

 worth of eggs. 



I have had a statement furnished me by P. Howell, Esq., 

 Secretary to the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, to the 

 following effect : The number of boxes shipped by that company's 

 vessels, for London, during the years 1844-5, was 8,874 ; about 

 the same number was shipped by the British and Irish Company j 

 making a total of 17, 148 boxes; each box contains 13,000 eggs, 

 but occasionally large boxes are used, containing more than four 

 times that number. This gives the result of 23,072,400 eggs, as 

 annually shipped for London. To Liverpool were shipped 5, 135 

 boxes, containing 25,567,500 eggs, making a total of the ship- 

 ments from Dublin alone, during the past year, to the two ports, 

 of London and Liverpool, of 48,639,900, the value of which, at 

 the average rate of 5s. 6d. per every 124 eggs (the return made), 

 gives a sum amounting to about 122,500, as the annual value of 

 the eggs, shipped from Dublin alone, and since this return the 

 export of eggs enormously increased. The other ports ship their 

 own eggs ; and assuming the export of Dublin to be equal to one- 

 fourth of the exports of all Ireland (a calculation reaching much 

 above the mark), we have very close on 500,000 or half a million 



