DANISH CO-OPERATIVE EGG EXPORT 

 SOCIETY 



{DANSK ANDEL8-(EGEXP0RT, OR D.A.CE.) 



In the middle of the nineteenth century poultry- keeping 

 was very much neglected in Denmark, and there was hardly 

 any trade in the products such as eggs, fowls, geese, or turkeys, 

 except just in the neighbourhood of Copenhagen, and little was 

 produced beyond what was consumed by the farmers them- 

 selves. The price of eggs was generally four a penny all the 

 year through ; only in winter did the price in the capital rise 

 to as much as 2s. 3^^. per score, when as often happened there 

 was a scarcity. In fact, during the first half of last century 

 poultiy-keeping was less important than in the Middle Ages, 

 when monks from England and Germany had settled in the 

 country and introduced various culinary refinements. When 

 in 1865 the first direct steamship communication with England 

 was estabUshed, an export of eggs began, at first on a very 

 small scale. The cheap Danish eggs found favour in England, 

 and Danish farmers gradually found that even poultry- keeping 

 could be made profitable. About the year 1870, 50,000 score 

 of eggs to the value of £1600 were exported ; 20 years later 

 5,000,000 score to the value of £270,000; the value of the 

 export gradually rose to about £350,000 ; but then it seemed 

 to have reached its maximum, and for some years it did not 

 increase. The number of poultry in Denmark increased from 

 4,600,000 in 1888 to 5,900,000 in 1893. 



The reason why the trade in and export of eggs stagnated 

 was the growing complaints from English dealers.. As the 

 production of eggs both in Denmark and other countries supply- 

 ing the Enghsh market is seasonal, being large in spring and 

 early summer and rapidly decreasing during the autumn, 



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