THE GREAT EGG CENTRE. Enormous Production of Eggs in a Single District in Italy.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 138, 23 January 1886, Page 3

THE GREAT EGG CENTRE. Enormous Production of Eggs in a Single District in Italy.

The exportation of eggs from Ancona to England commenced but ten years since, and now has assumed such large proportions that 520 railway trucks of ten tons each are required for their transport. The trade increases every year, and now amounts to 75,000,000 eggs per annum; of these 50,000,000 are forwarded by rail to England, and the remainder to Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and Holland. They are packed in straw in long boxes of dry white wood, weighing about 250 pounds each and containing 1,440 eggs. The boxes are divided in halves by a board, and when sawn through form two boxes, 720 each, without touching the contents. For the convenience of the Custom Houses they are bo constructed thatthe pointed iron rod can, if necessary, be thrust through them, so as to prove without unpacking that they contain nothing in the shape of bottles or packages of tobacco. These eggs are all collected in the district around Ancona and the neighbouring towns. Laat year their price on the spot varied from £1 10s to £3 16s per 1,000, and afforded considerable profit te the industrious and prudent peasants of the district, otherwise their production would not have increased so rapidly. The railway transit from Ancona to London varies from six to seven days, and charges upon a truck of ten tons are about £40. In the summer months, in consequence of the eggs being exposed to the rays of the sun, they suffer deterioration ; but in winter and apriDg they can be preserved for weeks. When the export of eggs from the Province of Ancona first commenced, about 1874, the only route then open was via Mount Cenis, Paris, and Dieppe or Boulogna. The time then occupied varied from twelve to sixteen days, and the charges upon a truck of tan tons amounted to about £64 to London. Upon the opening of the St. Gothard route a strong competition arose in, the price of transport and saving of time. During the last few years four fifths of all the eggs exported were forwarded via St. Gothard, Antwerp and Queensborough ; however, the French raillways are now trying to do all they can to regain this important traffic, which they had almost entirely lost. If each hen, on an average, laid one hundred eegs a year, in Ancona there are half a million hens devoting their lives to supply British wants, while 250,000 more favour the Swiss, Germans, Belgians, and Dutch. This enormous amount from a single district arises from the system of small farm 3 and peasant proprietors. Strange to say, poultry rearing has never been found to pay in this country when worked on a large scale. Within the last twenty years hundreds of limited companies have been established to carry on poultry rearing, but we have not heard of any proving a permanent success. Generally some disease caused by large numbers of fowls in one place carries off the stock and ruins the profit. Should the subdivision of land now so much talked of be carried out, it will cause a considerable increase in the production of eggs and poultry, as every small land owner keeps some. -"Pall Mall Gazette."