Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1918 — America Buying Feathers From China, Proving to Be As Good Customer as Huns [ARTICLE]

America Buying Feathers From China, Proving to Be As Good Customer as Huns

Although the export of feathers, (duck, fowl, etcj from China as a whole has decreased somewhat during the past few years owing to the elimination of the German buyers,, says a Shanghai newspaper, ■ the export ot ’ feathers from China to America has shown a great increase since the outbreak of the war, America having stepped in to take almost the identical quantity that Germany had previously taken. <• - About a million dollars’ worth of feathers are exported from -Chinese ports yearly, America last. year taking about one-third of this quantity, whereas two years previously the American purchases were inconsequential. The customs figures show that Kowloon (opposite Hongkong) is the principal port "of export for feathers from China, but as the feathers from Kowloon are merely transferred to the British possession of Hongkong, a few miles distant, there is.no means of knowing what the ultimate destination was of the very considerable quantity of more than $200,000 worth exported from the City of the Nine Dragons (which is what the. Chinese name means). ' ’ Shanghai Itself produces over SIOO,000 worth of feathers for export, while the Yangfse port of Wuhu furnishes not far short of $200,000 worth. The buyer of feathers In China' must use extreme care or else he will find what has been sold him ostensibly as duck feathers will contain feathers from chickens or other fowls whose feathers are of an inferior quality.