Concerning Eggs.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 36, 4 September 1902, Page 18

Concerning Eggs.

The egg is usually assooiated with the breakfast table, where, with the usual oonoomitants, it fills an agreeable but hitherto not exalted position. The value of an egg is generally measured by ita freshness, the superlative degree being found when the oval delicacy has been rescued from the nest without having had time to 0001. Of recent years science has created an abomination iv the shape of preserved eggs, which, as a rule, are to the genuine new,* laid article as a satyr to Hyperion, ani the method has given risje to the well known quizzical grammatical comparison : positive, eggs : comparative, fresh eggs ; superlative, new laid eggs. From the humble but useful position of a breakfast delicacy (tempered with baoon) the egg has advanced at a single bound to an important artiole of oommerce. Operations in eggs convulse markets, and form the subjeot of combinations and counter corribinations, operating with characteristic disregard of the producers (or rather their owners) and the consumers. The cackling of geese once saved Borne ; the exultant cackle of the hen, as she announced the advent of another egg, has an important mercantile significance. No longer is the egg tbe perquisite of the rural housewife. It has now become worthy of the attention of superior man, who has discovered that there is as much money in hens as perhaps in sheep. We halve to go to the United States to learn that the egg industry is capable of development to a degree of magnitude which is almost appalling. In 1900 there were in the States 281,000,000 fowls, and from these were put on the world's market 10,000,524,384 eggs, to say nothing of those oonsumed.and not sold. The value was more than. the expenses of the War Department amounted to, and far exceeded the postal revenue. The probable weight of this mass of eggs was about 653,000 tons, as any one can calculate, on the basis that the average egg weighs about two ounces. Minorca eggs are the heaviest, being about five to the pound, while Wyandotte and Brahma eggs run [seven or eight to the pound. The influence of the American hen on the world's egg market may be Burmised frqm the fact that in 1900 there were exported 72,000,000. This trade has grown entirely within ten yearß, for in 1890 there were imported to the States, chiefly from Mexico and Canada, 94,500,000. Lastly, it may be noted, in connection with the disturbance in the egg trade in New Zealand, that the lowest price in 1900 for American eggs was Sd per dozen for exports As six million dozen were exported, the return for them was £200,000. That left a balance worth upwards of 27 million pounds sterling for home consumption, so that the American capacity for egg eating is not to be di»pised. All these considerations are calculated to make poultryraisers ponder. It is providential that the hens do not understand human speech, or they would assuredly follow the fashion and form a combination among themeeves for better terms.