THE FOREIGN EGG.
The Poultry Industry in Denmark and Sweden. By Edward Brown. (National Poultry Organization Society, 12 Hanover Square, W. ls.)—The Danish egg bulks so largely in our shops that it is interesting to know, on the unimpeachable authority of Mr. Brown, that the maximum of production seems to have been reached in Denmark. Another point worth noting is that the statement made during the egg-marking controversy, that millions of Russian eggs are sent to this country as Danish, is untrue. They are carefully distinguished from Danish produce. The success of poultry-keeping in Denmark appears to be due to good work on the lines to which our own Utility Poultry Club and National Poultry Organization Society are devoting them- selves. There are more than two dozen breeding centres in the little country of Denmark, subsidised to the extent of about a five-pound-note apiece a year. At these places trap-nests are used, and eggs and stock birds are sold at minimum prices. The laying average of Leghorns at these centres has ranged from a hundred and thirty to a hundred and fifty eggs a year. The maximum is a hundred and eighty. The size of the eggs has been so increased that they are almost too large for the English market! Danish poultry-keepers have found out the value of lucerne, green in summer, dry in winter, as a nutritious food for hens. As is well known, large numbers of the cheap spring eggs are preserved in great lime-water tanks till the autumn, instead of being put on the market when eggs are cheap. They are sold, of course, as preserved, not fresh, eggs; but for all practical purposes are fresh. One firm alone preserves more than fourteen million eggs a year.
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