Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-06-18
CHINA EGGS GOOD TO EAT;
BIG EXPORTS PROVE IT
BY WILLIAM PHILIP s1mMs

HANKOW, .China.-Hankow is the
metropolis of the hen-fruit belt.
What Chicago is to the grain market
and New Orleans is to cotton, this
city of some 100000 souls is to the
Iowly but meaty egg.
If Hankow's 1919 egg trade had
Melted her American prices-say 40
to so cents a dozen-she would have
pulled down over 100000. AS
it was, she got less than that. Still
it was neat little sum.
Ninety per cent Of the egg-prod-
ucts imported by the United States
come from China. Most of them come
from here Mayhap that boarding
house "soft-boiled' you ate this
morning was first heralded by a
cackle up in Honan province, just
north of Hankow. And if not that
egg, then another. for in some form
or other, willy-hilly you have eaten
eggs from hither. For they come at
you in all sorts of discusses.
Sunny Side Up
Mostly they are used in cooking:
Bakeries use lots of them. "Wh1teS
and "yellows" generally are shipped
separately in cans holding about
twenty gallons and many cake fg
Usually they are shipped frozen
but not always. Sometimes they
are exported liquid"
Again they go away from here IN
powdered form, or dried. or nlayp pc
and "yellows" in the same tin: Jh eey
travel as fresh" too, some 5000
600 of them having emigrated from
this port like this in 1920 and almost
double that number the year before.
Frozen or liquid, blind" or look
ing at YOU, "sunnyy-slde , up, IN IN
taken of. them beyond a doubt-par-
ticularly if you live in town
Hens on Strike
At the Chinese customs here they
gave me a few figures.
In 1918 Hankow shipped s12,110,-
average price paid the natives was
10 cents dozen. A little bit of
arithmetic will show that at SO cents
a dozen-and they were about that
when I left the states-those eggs
would have represented CONSIDERABLY
over a hundred million dollars, =.
The hens got .temperamental In
1920. however, according to the
treaty port statistician. Or maybe
something worse happened to them,
for innumerable troops were quar-
tered in the egg country and SOL
are not VIGOROUSLY fond of both
chicken and eggs.
Anyway. there was a serious I'M
der production. Only $6,390,32
worth of export business was done
by the hens through the Hankow
customs. This was divided up
among all the egg products, like
this:
Dtd You Get Yoursp
Pounds.
Dried albumen.. 1,446,400 s1,7se,444
Frozen albumen. - 3,911,733 689,238
Egg ybllz, dried. 3,178,133 993,516
Egg y yo 11d s s6sGSo 7 7ss
Meiange, frozen frozen 3'525,600 SG9784
Fresh eggs (pcs) .35, 539,2 256,152
Frozen eggs .... S,829,467 1,05S,S74
On ali more than 100000 pounds
Of egg products plus over 100000
fresh eggs-two or three eggs for
every man, woman and child in the
entire United States-left Hankow
in 1920.
In order of value egg products
rank fourth in Hankow's exports.
The first, second and third are re-
spectively, cotton, wood-oil and cot
ton yarn.
There are a hundred or more egg
products factories in China, third
of the lot being in the one Province
of Honan, just to the north of Han
Cow. Between 5000 to 10000 bas-
kets Of eggs, 500 to the basket, daily
pass through this port alone during
the hen-fruit season-March to July,
Honan is the land Of the chicken
par excellence. Chinese from other
parts of the country turn their noses
up at the Romantics, but they take
off their skull-caps to the Honan
| hens.
The population of Honan is 35.-
100000 in an area of 67,940 square
miles, the average density being 250
and fertile, save in the central plain
| This is covered with sand deposited
| by the yellow river (Hwang-ho) dur
| ing a flood.
Chickens Beat Folks
The people are not so praiseworthy
as their poultry. and have the repu-
| tation of being the most uncouth Of
| the Chinese. In 'Hupeh, a neighbor-
! ing province, there is a saying:
"a Hupeh man can't sleep unless
he was washed his feet. A Honan
man, unless forced to ford a river,
never washes MS feet!''
They do not like foreigners. They
are very poor and squalor and dirt
| abound.
Honan is one of the oldest of the
| Chinese provinces and more than
| 1000 years before Christ held the
capital of the CONTEMPLATING
North of Hankow, in the South
eastern part of Honan, is a mountain
called ~Shwang-ho Shan. Romantics
believe that when folks die they go
| to live on this, mountain so they
have built hundreds of dwelling
places there for the souls of the de-
parted.
Environment, however, seems to
mean nothing to chickens, for. in
spite of squalor, superstition and an
over-population of an uncouth peo-
pie, they keep on producing just the