90 
The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 
while it is remarkable that even the war of 1870 scarcely checked the trade at all. As to prices, 
it will be seen that these have very steadily risen, and that although the exceptionally high prices 
of 1874 and the following years have not been maintained, the average price of late years is 
considerably above that of thirty years ago. 
1 he large amount of eggs exported from France will appear all the more remarkable if we 
consider the far greater quantity that must be consumed at home. Madame Mille-Robinet, about 
twenty years back, calculated the average consumption of eggs in Paris to be then about 120 per 
head per annum of the total population of the city. Whatever it then was, it has certainly 
increased largely since ; but serious doubt has been expressed as to the amount, we think on very 
insufficient grounds, in the article upon Continental Poultry-keeping by the late Mr. H. M. 
Jenkins, which appears in the Society’s Journal for 1883. He there adopts an estimate 
published by the National French Agricultural Society, which allows only 32 eggs per head 
for the Parisian consumption. He gives, however, no reason whatever for this belief ; and there 
are conclusive reasons for adopting a far more liberal estimate, besides the fact that French 
Societies, and even Government Offices also, are notoriously careless and untrustworthy in 
statistical matters. The late Mr. Gibson Richardson, in his well-known standard work upon “ The 
Corn and Cattle-producing Districts of France,” has doubled even Madame Mille-Robinet’s 
estimate ; and as he had ascertained that six millions of eggs were sold weekly in the Paris 
markets (though part would be for manufacturing purposes), this one fact is absolutely conclusive 
proof that such careful and resident observers had solid ground for their calculations. Again, the 
mcagreness of mere official figures is shown by an inquiry made by M. Barral into the sales of 
poultry in the Department Seine-et-Oise, the results of which are quoted by Mr. Tegetmeier. In 
all three arrondissements of Mantes, Dreux, and Nogent, the official returns only give a value of 
£23,808 for poultry, and £20,081 for eggs and feathers ; but local inquiry put the annual value of 
fat poultry alone in the three chief towns of Houdan, Dreux, and Nogent-le-Soi only, at £240,000, 
about ten times the “official” estimate for the whole of the three arrondissements!* Lastly, 
it will be sufficient to point out that the low figure adopted by the late Secretary of the Royal Agri- 
cultural Society — we were going to say in so thoroughly “ official ” a manner — for Paris, that city of 
omelettes and other dainties into which eggs so largely enter, is actually below the consump- 
tion per head of foreign eggs alone in even England, where consumption is notoriously far less. 
So much is pretty clear ; but it will be seen that the total number of eggs produced in France 
can only be estimated with more or less probability. Still there are some grounds for calculation. 
In the first place, if it be supposed that the increasing export is due to the native population 
decreasing their own consumption in order to sell to the foreigner, we are met by the curious 
fact that France has lately developed an import trade in eggs, to an extent forming a very 
appreciable fraction of the export' — in some years nearly one-fourth of it — thus showing that 
any falling off in home supply is at once felt and responded to. It would, therefore, appear 
that we may without much risk take as mainly correct still, such comparative figures as were arrived 
at under the Empire, when statistics were collected in a systematic manner since unknown. 
M. Lavergne, probably the highest agricultural authority in France, considered the consumption 
of eggs per head in the country in 1865 to be rather more than half that per head in Paris; 
and, consequently, that the Paris markets accounted for about one-twelfth of the eggs consumed 
in France. He arrived at that conclusion very carefully ; and if it be still sound, the 300,000,000 
to 350,000,000 eggs now sold yearly in Paris would represent at least 3,600,000,000 for the whole 
* French “statistics” only make the export of eggs to England in 1885, £556,800 ; whereas it was £1,507,099 
