Published by 
The Rural Publishing Co. 
333 W. 30th Street 
New York 
The Rural New Yorker 
The Business Farmer’s Paper 
Weekly, One Dollar Per Year 
Postpaid i §j : 
Single Copies, Five Cents 
Vol. LXXIX. NEW YORK, JANUARY 3, 1920. No. 4567. 
The Flood of Eg,g,s From China 
How Can Chinese Farmers Do It? 
Mr. Barred Roclc Wishes Everyone a Happy yew Year. Fig. 2 
We hear much about 
the great imports of eggs 
into this country from 
China. How is it possible 
for a country 6,000 and 
more miles away to pro¬ 
duce eggs so cheaply that 
they can be transported all 
this distance to New 
York, and sold at prices 
which compete with our 
home - produced eggs? 
What do the Chinese 
know about breeding and 
feeding poultry which en¬ 
ables them to keep up 
this competition? M. R. 
CRUDE INDUS¬ 
TRY.—These ques¬ 
tions are repeatedly 
asked, and we have 
spent much time trying 
to find the answer. The 
Department of Agricul¬ 
ture has given us figures 
and facts, and some of 
our readers in China 
have helped. It seems 
that the egg business in 
China is in a very crude 
state. As it becomes or¬ 
ganized and developed 
prices will rise, the sup¬ 
plies will be controlled 
and competition with 
our own products will 
not be so close. Most of 
the Chinese eggs come 
from the Yangtze Val¬ 
ley, where transporta¬ 
tion by water is avail¬ 
able. Steamers fitted up 
with freezing machinery 
ply in the rivers and 
collect eggs at various 
towns and villages. Eggs 
are collected through 
the country and brought 
to the towns. They are 
taken on the steamer 
and broken and frozen, 
and thus held for ex¬ 
port. Many dried eggs 
are also prepared. 
STATISTICS FROM 
CHINA.—Table No. 1 
shows the quantities 
of eggs sent from 
China to this country during the past five years. 
This shows how the exports of shell eggs are falling, 
while those of dried and frozen eggs are increasing. 
Table No. 2 shows this even more clearly, for this 
cover’s imports of all eggs into the United States. 
Figures for the first eight months of 1019 show 
that total imports of shell eggs were S23.41S dozen 
and of dried and fi’ozen eggs from all countries 
10,553,5S7 pounds! 
THE ORIENTAL COMPETITOR.—It is a remark¬ 
able thing that through the development of trans¬ 
portation and scientific handling a speckled, mongrel 
hen in far-off China may lay an egg which later 
turns up in New York in the candy which a young 
man carries to his lady, or in the wedding cake 
which helps to celebrate his marriage! And the 
reason why this is possible is a part of our old story 
of the 35-cent dollar. The ignorant, unorganized 
Chinaman on his little farm practically gives these 
eggs away to the dealers, as they represent about 
the only product he can turn into cash. He probably 
receives about 10 cents of the dollar which these 
eggs finally bring in New York, and this egg also 
serves to cut down the price of American eggs by 
serving as a substitute. 
LOW LABOR COST.—China is able to keep up 
this ruinous business and compete in the world’s 
markets at long range because of the low labor cost. 
This not only means the work, but the cost of feed 
and cost of handling. The business seems to have 
been started by the Germans, who started out a few 
years ago to organize and control all undeveloped 
sources of food. 
NEGLECTED FLOCKS.—There is probably no 
such thing, in China, as a commercial poultry busi¬ 
ness as we understand that term here. Thus far it 
has been more like the junk business or the old- 
fashioned business of collecting bones for fertilizer. 
The Chinese are an agricultural people. Probably 
TABLE NO. 
1 —EGGS 
FTOM CHINA 
Fiscal 
Dried and 
Year 
Shell Eggs 
Value 
Frozen Eggs 
Value 
1014 
1.S75.265 doz. I 
$232,431 
347.876 lbs. 
826.065 
1015 
2,035,862 “ 
224.462 
7,087.085 “ 
554,346 
1016 
320.718 “ 
37.524 
3.808,813 “ 
621.004 
1017 
464.568 “ 
83.135 
9.094.003 “ 
1.615.370 
1018 
470,617 “ 
103,122 
14,021.349 “ 
3,967,516 
TABLE NO. 2— TOTAL EGG IMPORTS 
Dried and 
Shell Eggs Frozen Eggs 
Fiscal Year 1014 5,832,725 doz. 3,420.412 lbs. 
“ “ 1918 1,160,060 “ 14,597,503 “ 
70 per cent of the popu¬ 
lation live on the land— 
small farmers, rather* 
than gardeners. Nearly 
every family keeps a 
few chickens—about as 
many as can pick up a 
living with little help in 
feeding. In some parts 
of the West much the 
same system was fol¬ 
lowed for years. A farm 
flock would run at large, 
picking their own living 
through Spring and 
Summer from weed 
seeds, grass, wastes and 
grain in the oat or 
wheat fields. In Winter 
they roost anywhere and 
•the farmer throws out 
an occasional handful 
of corn. They probably 
never lay over 75 eggs 
during the year, and 
most of these during the 
Spring or early Sum¬ 
mer. The eggs are laid 
in almost any conven¬ 
ient place, and are 
picked up by the women 
and children, and sold 
during the season to 
peddlers. Gathered in 
this way they are finally 
collected by dealers and 
sent to the large cities, 
where they are sorted 
and the best ones put 
into cold storage. Later 
these cheap eggs appear 
in our markets, fre¬ 
quently being sold as a 
new-laid product. Pro¬ 
duced in this way, these 
eggs cost practically 
nothing, and they are 
sold cheaply to the pack¬ 
ing houses. This is not 
a high type of poultry¬ 
keeping, yet a large pro¬ 
portion of our poultry, 
and of our eggs, were 
formerly produced in this way. With the high prices 
now prevailing many of these Western farmers are 
taking better care of their poultry and getting more 
eggs to the hen. 
CRUDE HATCHING.—We speak of this method 
followed in our own country to make it clear how 
these Chinese eggs are produced. The Chinese hen 
is not well fed, nor particularly well cared for. 
The mild climate in the egg-producing regions enables 
the hen to pick up a large share of its own food, 
and the eggs produced in this way are almost clear 
profit. Since the German development of the frozen 
egg business these eggs have become a cash product, 
the result being that while formerly the Chinaman 
consumed at home a large proportion of the egg 
supply, now practically all the eggs are sold to ob¬ 
tain money. Very crude contrivances are employed 
in keeping up the supply of poultry. Eggs are 
hatched by the natural method, and also more or 
less in homemade incubators. Some of these are 
made by packing the eggs in straw or the husks of 
rice and putting hot stones around the straw so as 
to keep up the heat. King, in his excellent work 
entitled ‘’Farmers of Forty Centuries.” gives some 
interesting statements about these homemade iucu- 
