The: opening of the feather season in China calls for consideration of several important points in connexion with this branch of the country's export trade. The feathers which China exports both to Europe and America are those of duck and goose, and at times very handsome profits have acerned from it. Last year was an exceptionally good one in respect of this, and although the prices ruling in China were too high, generally speaking for Europe, America was always in the market, The high rates were to a certain extent due to the Swatow typhoon disaster which wrought almost complete havoc throughout one of the greatest producing distracts of the country. The United States showed a@ very strong demand for feathers at the time, and the result was that the remainder of the producing districts benefited to a great extent.
The effect of last season having closed at a very high figure has caused Chinese dealers to hope for an equally good return during the present year, and many purchases have been made on the opening at big rates. There seems, however, no cause to anticipate a shortage in the feather production of the world this year, and in view of certain features recently pointed out in connexion with the feather export trade the position is not nearly so definite as the dealers in question would appear to assume.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.