158 THE TRADE IN EGGS AND POULTRY 



cases, each case containing 1,440 eggs, being sent away 

 annually. The company have agents at all the nearer 

 railway-stations, to receive eggs from people bringing 

 them there; and supplies are also obtained from the 

 Adrianople district of Turkey, and even from places 

 nearer to Constantinople. The eggs are mostly small, 

 and the prices paid are low, three being bought for the 

 equivalent of 2d. in the winter, and five for 2d. in 

 the summer. They are sent mostly to Germany and 

 Austria, going in car-load lots to minimize carriage, and 

 a certain proportion are received in London in due 

 course; but, inasmuch as the eggs would be mostly 

 a fortnight old when received at Sofia, would take 

 another fortnight to reach London, would cost from 

 52 to 56 per truck for transport, and would be found 

 (apart from quality) almost unsaleably small for the 

 English market, it would not seem that the British 

 farmer, with the opportunities open to him for disposing 

 of his new-laid eggs, need be afraid of such competition 

 as this. In fact, Mr. Brown says, in concluding his 

 series of articles (which those who are specially interested 

 in the subject should read for themselves in full) : 



Looking at the matter from the point of view of the farmers of 

 our own land who are taking up poultry, I feel more strongly than 

 ever that they have nothing to fear from foreign competition, either 

 in connection with eggs or table poultry at any rate for a long 

 time to come. The fact that prices are low in each of the countries 

 visited is more than compensated by the distance which supplies 

 have to travel. Eggs can never come upon our markets in first- 

 class condition, and they must always be the supplies which are 

 sold at low rates. If our own people, by lack of organization in 

 marketing, and by neglect of their opportunities, fail to take ad- 

 vantage of their nearness to the consuming centres, they have no 

 one to blame but themselves. I venture to think that the poultry 

 producers of the countries named would speedily adopt different 

 methods if they had the same opportunities as we have here. At 

 the present time, however, speed in marketing with respect to eggs 

 is not realized ; hence supplies are stale before they are even put 

 upon the railways. When it is remembered that it costs upwards 



