Marketing of Eggs. 



carriage, by sending large quantities, and thus securing, as a 

 rule, higher returns. Already many farmers who are pro- 

 ducing eggs on the more extensive scale have solved the 

 problem for themselves. Little is heard about them because 

 they have no complaint to make. They provide for a demand 

 which is rapidly increasing. But it is not so with those whose 

 operations are on a smaller scale. They cannot make 

 contracts, because the quantities they are able to offer are 

 alone not worth the attention of the retailer or large consumer, 

 and they cannot promise the regularity of supply desired. 

 Unless they are so situated that a market can be obtained at 

 their own doors, or in the immediate neighbourhood, as in 

 residential districts or near the great centres of population, 

 they are dependent upon local buyers, who, in many cases, 

 have not yet realised the necessity for rapidity of sale, and 

 whose system is calculated to retard rather than to expedite 

 the rate at which the eggs pass from the nest to the egg-cup. 

 Very little dependence can be placed upon eggs sold in this 

 way. Producers and higglers have equally to learn that an 

 qgg a week old is not of the same value as when a day old. 

 Producers find no encouragement to supply eggs in the best 

 condition, as they receive no more for those which are a day 

 old than for others which have been laid a week or a fortnight. 

 Higglers and country shop-keepers buy as the eggs are 

 offered. They do not regard quality or freshness, probably 

 holding until they have enough to nil a case, and conse- 

 quently receive small returns. They do not think of grading 

 for size or testing for quality. A town retailer places small 

 dependence upon such eggs. He may call them " new-laid," 

 or " fresh English/' or " country eggs/' but he understands 

 that often French, or Danish, and of late the better grades of 

 Irish, are better in every way, and that he can send 

 the last-named out with less risk of complaint than 

 the " natives." Here may be found an explanation why many 

 of those who have endeavoured to awaken interest in 

 English produce have found the retail trade unsympathetic. 

 In a southern county at the end of August one producer 

 was obtaining is. 6d. per dozen for eggs wholesale, with 

 equally high prices at other periods of the year, because he 



