In 1820, five years after the Peace, thirty-one millions of foreign eggs found their way into England, paying a duty of 11,077_l._, at the rate of a penny for each dozen. They principally came from France, from that coast which had a ready communication with Kent and Sussex, and with the Thames. These eggs, liable as they were to a duty, came to the consumer so much cheaper than the Berwick eggs, or the Welsh eggs, or the eggs even that were produced in Middlesex or Surrey, that the trade in eggs was slowly but surely revolutionised. Large heaps of eggs made their appearance in the London markets, or stood in great boxes at the door of the butterman, with tempting labels of ‘24 a shilling,’ or ‘20 a shilling.’ They were approached with great suspicion, and not unjustly so; for the triumphs of steam were yet far from complete. But it was discovered that there was an egg-producing country in close proximity to London, in which the production of eggs for the metropolitan market might be stimulated by systematic intercourse, and become a mutual advantage to a population of two millions, closely packed in forty square miles of street, and a population of six hundred thousand spread over two thousand five hundred square miles of arable, meadow, and forest land, with six or eight large towns. This population of the Pas de Calais is chiefly composed of small proprietors. Though the farms are larger there than in some other parts of France, some of the peculiarities of what is called the small culture are there observable. Poultry, especially, is most abundant. Every large and every small farmhouse has its troops of fowls and turkeys. The pullets are carefully fed and housed; the eggs are duly collected; the good-wife carries them to the markets of Arras, or Bethune, or St. Omer, or Aire, or Boulogne, or Calais: perhaps the egg-collector traverses the district with his cart and his runners. The egg-trade with England gradually went on increasing. In 1835, France consigned to us seventy-six millions of eggs, paying a duty of tenpence for 120. In 1849, we received ninety-eight millions of foreign eggs, paying a duty of tenpence-halfpenny per 120, amounting to 35,694_l._ These are known in the egg-market as eggs of Caen, Honfleur, Cherbourg, Calais, and Belgium.