Why do we import seven or eight hundred million eggs every year, and
pay two millions and a half sterling for them? The answer is, that
the demand for eggs is steadily increasing, while the home produce is
either lessening or stationary in amount.
Why the home supply does not advance with the increase of demand, is a
question that calls for a little attention to the commercial aspects of
farming. So many small holdings have been absorbed by large farms, that
many a cottage housewife has been withdrawn from rural life who would
otherwise have reared cottage poultry; neither the allotment-holder nor
the artisan has range and space enough for rearing eggs to advantage.
In a trade journal called _The Grocer_, in which much information
concerning the provision trades is given, the following remarks occur:
‘If a due attention to details were given in this country, the stock of
fowls which roam about the farmyard and gather corn from the thrashing,
instead of being a mere adjunct and perquisite of the servants, would
return sufficient to discharge the rental of many a small holding.
Such, we have understood, has been the case where the experiment has
been fairly tried; and once this becomes an established notion, our
own supplies will increase in a greater ratio than they do at present.
According to a competent authority, at this time—what with improved
native and imported varieties—we possess the best stock of egg-layers
in the world. In no country is the management of our best poultry-yards
excelled. These should serve as a model for the rest; to bring up the
wholesale results to their true national importance, all we require is
an extension of the taste for poultry-farming amongst those who earn
their living on the land.’
The real new-laid eggs of home produce are comparatively few. Their
excellence is best appreciated by obtaining them at country farmhouses.
The small farmers who do not take nor send their eggs to open market
sell them to country shopkeepers, or barter them for other commodities.
Many cottagers contrive to keep a few fowls; and where there is no pig,
these fowls act as scavengers, consuming the scraps of the family, the
outside cabbage-leaves, peelings of boiled potatoes, &c.; if the fowls
are supplied with a little corn, they will lay a good many eggs. This
desultory mode of leaving poultry to find their food as best they may
is, however, quite a mistake, and can never be adequately remunerative.
Fowls, to pay, must be well looked after, and systematically fed and
housed.
Ireland used to supply England with a considerable number of eggs, and
perhaps may continue so to do; but statistical details of the trade
between the two portions of the United Kingdom are not now published.
About thirty years ago, fifty million eggs were annually shipped
from Dublin alone to London and Liverpool, value about a hundred and
twenty thousand pounds; the supply obtained from all Ireland very much
exceeded this amount. Mr Weld, in his description of Roscommon about
that period, noticed some of the features of the egg-trade in the
rural districts of Ireland: ‘The eggs are collected from the cottages
for several miles round by runners, boys nine years old and upwards,
each of whom has a regular beat which he goes over daily, bearing back
the produce of his toil carefully stored in a small hand-basket. I
have frequently met with these boys on their rounds; and the caution
necessary for bringing their brittle ware with safety seemed to have
communicated an air of business and steadiness to their manner unusual
to the ordinary volatile habits of children in Ireland.’
But as we have said, a large supply from abroad has become a necessity;
and the characteristics of this supply are worth knowing; because they
shew that the trade can be conducted profitably without having recourse
to artificial incubation or hatching—a system which has at times had
many advocates in England.
The importation of French eggs into this country has increased in an
almost incredible degree, owing in part to the facilities afforded by
the commercial treaty between England and France. It has risen from
about a hundred and fifty million to six or seven hundred million eggs
annually, since the year 1860; while the value per thousand has also
increased, until at length our importers pay at least two millions
and a half sterling for the yearly import. The eggs are brought over
chiefly in steamers, and landed at Southampton, Folkestone, Arundel,
Newhaven, and Shoreham.
The egg-culture in France is almost exclusively confined to small
farmers, who carry it on in a vigorous and commercial spirit, chiefly
in Burgundy, Normandy, and Picardy. Every village has its weekly
market, to which farmers and their wives bring their produce, in
preference to selling at the farmyard to itinerant dealers. A merchant
will sometimes buy twenty thousand eggs at one market; he takes them
to his warehouse, where they are sorted and packed, and possibly sent
off the same day to Paris or to London. According to the conditions
required by the buyers, the eggs are sometimes counted, sometimes
‘sized’ by passing them through a ring, sometimes bought in bulk. In
many of the north-west districts of France, poultry villages send
almost their whole supply of eggs to England, from Calais, Cherbourg,
and Honfleur, packed in cases containing from six hundred to twelve
hundred each. Nearly all continental countries producing sufficient
eggs for their own supply, the export from France is almost entirely to
England. It is found that the buckwheat districts are those in which
most eggs are reared—possibly a useful hint to English rearers.
The production of eggs for market is one thing, and the hatching
of them another. We do not here go into the question of hatching,
though much that is interesting could be written on the subject. It
is enough to say that all the ingenious plans that have been set on
foot for the artificial hatching and rearing of poultry have broken
down through the costliness of the arrangements and management. Those
who have tried any of these plans have arrived at the conclusion that
both eggs and poultry can only be produced on a cheap scale by farmers
or cottagers. And this opinion stands to reason. About farmyards and
cottages in rural districts, hens can pick up food that would otherwise
be wasted. Besides, let it be kept in mind, that hens like to roam
about scratching for seeds, worms, and particles of lime to furnish
material out of which the shells of their eggs are formed. If kept in
confinement, exceeding care is required to supply the creatures with
such requisites as their maternal instincts seem to require. What we
suggest is, that cottagers, farmers, and others possessing sufficient
scope for keeping poultry, should go far more largely into the business
of egg-culture than they do at present. Why should they allow the
great egg-supply for this country to be in the hands of others? The
answer, we fear, is, that our farming classes generally look down
contemptuously on the supplying of eggs for market. It is too small an
affair to invite consideration. Small! Two millions and a half of money
annually carried off by the French. Is that a trade to be treated with
indifference?
We hear much of women’s work, and of how young ladies should employ
themselves. Here is something, at all events, for farmers’ wives and
daughters to set their face to without the slightest derogation of rank
or character. Let them take up in real earnest the culture of fowls, if
only for the sake of the eggs which on a great and remunerative scale
may be produced. Those farmers’ wives who already appropriate part of
their leisure to this occupation deserve all honour; and we honour them
accordingly.