1906.] 



The Sussex Chicken Industry. 



753 



the trifling fall in the value of all cream imported from 80s. id. 

 per cwt. to 793. iod. last year. 



Preserved Milk. — Preserved milk, other than condensed, 

 decreased by 2,383 cwt, the decrease being entirely attribut- 

 able to France, which sent only a third of its 1904 total. 

 Germany and Holland made no advance, and the increase in 

 Belgium is due to one apparently exceptional consignment in 

 March. The United States and Australia practically dropped 

 out of this trade, but some consignments were received for 

 the first time from Austria-Hungary. Owing to the partial 

 elimination of the very cheap French preserved milk, the 

 value per cwt. rose from 12s. iod. in 1904 to 22s. iod. last 

 year. 



The following observations in regard to the Sussex chicken 

 industry have been communicated to the Board by Mr. J. W. 



Hurst of Uckfield : — It is rather remark- 

 The Progress able in an age of what are termed " up-to- 



creasing vitality should be one in which the methods are as 

 old as those of the others are new. The home and centre of 

 chicken fattening is, as is well known, in East Sussex. It is in 

 this district that poultry production is carried on more profit- 

 ably than perhaps in any other ; and this with no expensive 

 plant, with no show or advertisement, and by no highly 

 cultured class, but by old-world methods, carried out by an 

 old-fashioned people, mostly illiterate. Yet these people, with 

 their ancient methods, are making a living, are adding to their 

 stock, increasing their output, and multiplying their establish- 

 ments. 



The chicken industry of Sussex is carried on primarily by small 

 holders, who do not claim to be " poultry farmers," as the term 

 is popularly used ; but who are, in fact, the most practical 

 farmers of fowls, and are none the less so because their hold- 

 ings necessarily carry four-legged stock in addition to the 

 feathered. 



The official records and statistics of the Sussex industry are 



of the 

 Sussex Chicken 

 Industry. 



date poultry plants," in which all kinds of 

 scientific appliances are employed, that a 

 branch of the industry which shows in- 



OOO 



