DANISH CO-OPEEATIVE EGG EXPOKT SOCIETY 77 



by only £50,000 during the five years 1891-95, but it greAv by 

 £100,000 annually during the next five years, showing that 

 the turning-point was the year when this new development of 

 co-operation began. 



At first the headquarters of the D.A.Qil. were at Vejle in 

 Jutland, and the export was carried on from that place. In 

 1900 the Society's head office was moved to Copenhagen, and, 

 besides Vejle, nine local branches for the collection, sorting, 

 packing, and export of eggs were gradually started. In several 

 of these branch establishments eggs are preserved to be sold 

 during winter as *' pickled eggs," and at five branches poultry 

 is received from members to be fattened and sold. The Society 

 has not confined its activity to commercial matters, but has, 

 since 1902, encouraged and improved poultry keeping by in- 

 viting breeders of fowls to enter for annual competitions at 

 which their whole stock of poultry is judged according to its 

 production during the year, the economy of feeding, the general 

 management and the economic result. The object is to find 

 and reward such strains of poultry as are good layers and to get 

 good birds for breeding or sittings of eggs spread from them 

 among the farmers. Since 1914 this work has been taken over 

 by a Joint Committee appointed by the leading Agricultural 

 Societies and the D.A.Qil. with the support of the Ministry of 

 Agriculture. 



It will already have appeared from the above statistics of 

 the egg trade that the D.A.CE. has not brought under its imme- 

 diate influence so large a proportion of the total trade in eggs 

 as the corresponding co-operative undertakings concerned with 

 butter- making and bacon manufacture. Only a minority of 

 the egg producers in Denmark has joined a co-operative society 

 for the sale and export of their eggs, and this is true, even when 

 to the members of the D.x\.OE. we add the egg-collecting branches 

 of the several Co-operative Bacon Factories which undertake to 

 dispose of their members' eggs on similar lines to the D.A.QE. 

 x\n official inquiry in 1903 i showed that about every fifth 

 farmer was a member of an egg- collecting society. The number 

 of poultry on their farms was quite 30 per cent, of the poultry of 



1 Statist. Meddelelser, 4 Roekke, 22 Bd. 5 Hoefte, Tab. 9, " Landbrugete 

 Andelsvirksomhed," 1906. 



