1906.] 



Eggs versus Table Poultry. 



521 



EGGS VERSUS TABLE POULTRY. 



Whether the production of eggs or of chickens for market 

 should be the chief aim of the farmer poultry-keeper can only be 

 determined by a study of the conditions under which he has to 

 work and of the prices realizable, as a farm may be suitable to 

 one branch but not to another. In some counties chickens can 

 be sold at nearly twice the sum they command elsewhere, whilst 

 in all residential and manufacturing districts eggs are constantly 

 in demand at satisfactory prices, though in many of the latter 

 high-class chickens are saleable to a very limited extent only and 

 at poor prices. Hence it is essential for the farmer to modify his 

 operations in accordance with his conditions and with the class 

 of produce which will yield the highest returns. The purely 

 agricultural counties, however favourable they may be to the 

 production of eggs and poultry, are seriously affected by the 

 absence of local demand and by the old-fashioned, roundabout, 

 and expensive system of marketing. Until farmers and producers 

 generally adopt metliods more in conformity with modern con- 

 ditions of life, so as to enable them to compete successfully with 

 producers in the nearer Continental countries, they will fail to 

 obtain an adequate return for their labour, and there will not be 

 accorded that encouragement to poultry-keeping by farmers 

 which would stimulate home production to an enormous extent. 



Up to the present time nearly all the finer qualities of poultry 

 consumed in the United Kingdom, are reared within the con- 

 fines of the British Isles, and only the cheaper grades are 

 imported. France, however, produces as good fowls as Britain, 

 and Belgium nearly as good, but in both, better prices prevail 

 in their own markets than would be paid here. Elsewhere the 

 fowls are not as good as our own, but people of all nations are 

 awakening to the possibilities of this trade. 



In respect to eggs it would be satisfactory if as good a report 

 could be given. That the great bulk of foreign eggs are 

 inferior to our own is an accepted fact. Distance means 

 much in relation to eggs, simply because to traverse any dis- 

 tance involves time, and time is fatal to the freshness of an egg- 

 But, in the case of the great mass of home eggs, our system — 

 or want of system — is so ill-suited to our needs that these take 



