154 THE TRADE IN EGGS AND POULTRY 



the advantages ought to be in favour of the British 

 farmer or cottager as against, say, those producers in 

 Russia who have been getting their 300,000 a year 

 out of us for their notoriously poor qualities. As for 

 the financial aspects of poultry-rearing for the market, 

 these are well indicated in a letter by Mr. Edward 

 Brown to The Times, in which he says : 



Experiments conducted in connection with the University 

 College, Reading, have shown that chickens can be raised to a 

 killing age (thirteen weeks) at a cost of 3d. to 3^d. per pound, or 

 a total cost per bird, inclusive of initial cost of egg, of working 

 incubators and brooders, and of food, of 7 7 id. to 8'66d. If this 

 can be accomplished upon a large scale, the margin is greater than 

 in any other class of stock. 



In the winter of 1904-1905 Mr. Brown contributed 

 to Poultry an extremely interesting series of articles on 

 the egg and poultry business as carried on in the 

 Balkans, throwing much light on the way in which the 

 big quantities handled in Continental countries are got 

 together, for the purpose, mainly, of consignment else- 

 where. In connection with the Budapest Co-operative 

 Marketing Society founded in 1897 in order to supply 

 farmers' produce to the Budapest markets, thus estab- 

 lishing direct dealing between producers and consumers 

 Mr. Brown wrote that a very great amount of the 

 work done relates to the sale of eggs. There are, it 

 seems, 300 local societies connected with the central 

 organization, and close on I2| million eggs have been 

 handled in a single year, 75 per cent, of the sum total 

 being exported. Much has also been done in the sale 

 of poultry; but in this branch greater difficulties are 

 experienced, owing to the irregularity of supply and 

 the unevenness of quality. 



At Szabadka, the 'capital' of Southern Hungary, 

 Mr. Brown visited one of the four establishments there 

 of Messrs. Hartmann and Conen, who are known as 



