Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1886-09-19
THE FCG BUSINESS.
Five Million Eggs Consumed An
nualIy in Savannah.

nually in Savannah.
what are you dong?" was asked yes
terday of produce dealer who was deep
ly engrossed in making some calculation.
"Pm trying to find out how many eggs
are consumed in Savannah in a year,"
was the reply.
"How many do you make it?'
wen, there are on an average from
200 to 1900 dozen consumed every day;
taking it at 1920 dozen that would make
$4,000 dozen in one month, $4,000 dozen,
or D, ID, 900 eggs in year"
''ThGt must keep the Georgia hen pretty
busyw
"One-half of these are not Georgia eggs,
though" was the reply. ''The majority
OF eggs consumed in Savannah are ship
ped here from Tennessee. They are put
up In boxes which hold from 80 to 40
dozen and in barrels holding generally
about TO dozen. They have to he care
lnlly packed in straw, too, or the dealer
mere would receive more broken eggs than
he could well handle, tor being shipped
by rail they get pretty well shaken up
before they get here. OF course there
are thousands OF dozen eggs brought
here from the surrounding cOun-
try. They are nearly all ship
ped to few of the heavier
dealers,who sell them to the smaller deal
ers. Do you know almost every whole
sale merchant in Savannah, no matter
what line be is in. deals in eggs to a
greater or less extent. I'll tell you how
This IS. The country people carry eggs to
town, and trade them to the merchant
there, and he ships them to bis merchant
here TO be credited on his account, and
the Savannah merchant sells them out
TO the local dealers. unless he happens to
be in the grocery business himself and has
some retail customers.
There is not much money in handling
eggs. For instance, here is lot of Ten
nessee eggs l am selling at zoe. dozen.
They cost me 16c. and the freight on them
is about &c. The average profit on them
at wholesale is from 1c. to &C., and at re-
Tall from &c. to &c., not much OF margin
you see. III some enterprising man would
90 regularly inlo the business of raising
chic6ens and eggs there would be big
money in if. There are number of
poultry farms in Tennessee, and they are
all successful. The Tennessee egg is far
superior to- sthose that come in, from
the country around here. 1t is
larger and seems to have a better taste,
and people generally buy them in prefer
ence 10 the Georgia egg. The reason of
this is because the Tennessee hen is
properly fed every day, while her Geor-
gia sister has to scratch for herself or go
TO roOst hungry"
''DO You ever ship eggs to the Northern
or Eastern citiesW
VERY seldom. Occasionally in the
spring our market gets overstocked and
prices are higher in other cities, and we
ship few, but the demand here is gen.
orally greater than the supply"
SLOW long will an egg keepY'
NV ell, that depends a good deal on the
weather; the average time though is about
ten days. An egg shell is full OF small
pores and the air permeating through
these is what spoils the egg. If some
cheap covering could be made that would
keep the egg perfectly imperYious to the
air there Is no telling how long it would
keep"
do you handle any foreign eggsro
mo, there are none banded in Savan-
nah, hut there are millions of them
shipped to this country every year"
All eggs received in this country from
foreign ports are known as "pickled'
eggs, and are packed in cases of so dozen
each. They are treated to some process
previous to their shipment, by which their
appearance of freshness is partially pre-
served until they are received and put on
the market in the larger cities of this
country.
Germany ia at present the largest ship
per OF eggs to this country, and the Ger
man eggs are superior both in size and
flavor to any other foreign eggs received.
The Danish eggs, which are received in
less quantities than the German are looked
on with very little favor by dealers on ac-
count OF their small size, which makes Il
almost impossible to dispose of them. Ef-
forts are now being made by a wealthy
Italian grocer to create a market tor
Italian eggs, which he proposes to have
brought here from Italy during the latter
part of the present year. The Italian
eggs are much smaller than the DANISH
eggs. and are said to be not larger than
those laid by the small ''bantam" fowl OF
| this country. For this reason, it is he
lieved by egg dealers that the Italians
efforts will not be crowned with very
| great success.