Methods in China and Ameri ica Compared: Sugestion that 1 Interests Shor nuld Improve Quality of Eggs Handled for Export Hy @ Correspondent America.
Some years ago T was frivolling on the Tsinpa Railway with an American and. ey Australian as companions. When we were passing through the egg-raising. dis-trots of "Anhui, my" "Australian friend, noticing ® whole junk load oggs being poled dowa one of the al exclaimed, Jeggs than you can shake a stick "Look at the oggs Egus More
ab" (C never could understand His stick-shaking accomplishment of the Australians.)
But. the American was unmovwas a. Californian, he told us. Ho came from the place where they really raised eggs, and {you should see, and you should do and small industry. ico did I think the time would ever come for me to ce the egg te-ions in California to. which he of fact, just returned from a trip to a place in Northern California called Petaluma, which claims to the veritably' undisputed home of the hen. Indeed, one would really think this to" be the case had he not been in Anhui, Hunan and other of the Yangtze, provinces, where eggs are produced in remarkable bulk, Whereover cone looked in Petaluma he saw closely-herded flocks of hoes, and amid all the cackling it was' hard to think. Eggs, egzs—everywhere eggs, and running to a8 high as fifty' cents per dozen, American wold! cult's 90 PRODUCTION, 1 was sufficioatly interested when I got home to look up statistics of the volume of cams and products of the egg that are exported from China to foreign countries, and I got the same Sort of jolt that the average "North China' reader would got if he were to do the same thing. T was astounded to find that since the year of the Revolution of China's contribution of eggs to the world has risen from consider. ably less than five milli worth to nearly thirty million taels' worth. I wonder how many Shanghai people would have been able to tell me that without frst Having looked it upt_ In 1918, 49 my reference shows me, vox products—that_is," alfsme and yolk, fresh, preserved an frozen eggs—were sold by, China abroad to the tone of Hk. Tls. 4.6 rullions, which by 1982 had risen the extremely creditable total of Hk. Tis, 29.8. million. [do not Know the output annually from Potaluma, but T would hazard a guess that certain collecting dis-{riets in the Yangtze Valley, such Téingkiangpu, for example, would ram her pretty close.
But what a difference in appearance. and quality. T- wonder whether there are any old Singlaporeans in the China ports who will remember cating any number of agas from a dozen upwards at tone sitting at 2 curious institution of the colony in those days called the "og club." What the club existed for none of us used to care; all we know and cared about was that the Chinese in charge of the club supplied un-
Timited quantities of eggs. daresay that there are men in Singapore of the present day who reali taking, suniler riskefor Lost of those eggs could not stretch of human imagination be' called fresh—and eating many ethan a dozen eggs a2 2 Hitting, i the club has aot closed flown' No, those eggs, and. the fre rage China en, cannot stand Comparison for quality and. appearance with the" Petaluma poultry farms" there T. thought fndoe 1 tolled round the Bint it would surely" be" one investment for those interested in the 'China, og trade (and. there re, very: Sewn tha. monopoly) systematically to undertake, Oy methods that have proved profit flo in. Petaluma, © general im. Provement.in the' cag prodaced By the hen andthe duck in the Ripplying, districts' in. Ohina, Tmprove' the quality of the ce niodity, and yeu improve the pri abroad: "Great. Britain takes. by far the greater bulk of these ears agy products from Ching. the trade Betng. almost cotirely Bintish hands. aiid. an opportun-presented, therefore, for tite Baton in China to buckle flown and improve a trade which me grown from," absolutely "no-king' a. couple of decades ayo to the proportions: above quoted.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.