The Opelousas courier., 1889-01-19
FRUIT OF THE HEN.
It Contains Every Element
Necessary to Mans Support.
Five Hundred Ways of Dressing
E~ggs.--Mediclnal Qualities.

EggS,--MeQlCInal OuallIfeS.
The discourse on eggs which Mr..
Simmonds has just delivered before the
Society of Arts, as reported by the
London Standard. is we'll worthy Of the
most careful consideration. Eggs,
according to the lecturer, constitute a
neglected mine of wealth. They are
the one article of agricultural produce
for which the demand is unlimited, and
perhaps the sG1, one in which we
might, did we choose, defy foreign
competition. They not only mean
money, but they command prices that
admit of profit compared with which
beef and mutton are of little accounn
and wheat barely worth m~entioning.s
Hens, for those who know how to
utilize them, lay eggs which, II not
made of gold, are quite capable of being
turned into that metal, when they are
retailable all the year round, one month
with another, at something not much
short Of q penny apiece, while the eggs
of ducks will bring a still more re-
munerative price.
Eggs are o meal in themselves.
Every element necessary to the support
Of man is contained within the limits of
q eggshell, in the best proportions and
in the most palatablo form. Plain
boiled, they are wholesome. The
masters Of French cookery, however,
;ffirm that it il easy to dress them in
more than 500 different ways, each
method not only economical but salu-
tary in the highest degree. No honest
appetite Y yet rejected an egg in
some guise. 1t is nutriment in the
most portable form and in the most
concentrated shape. Whole nations of
mankind rarely touch any other animal
food. Kings cat them plain as readily
as do the humble tribesmen.
After the victory of Muhldorf, when
the Kaiser Ludwig sat at meat with his
burgrafs and great captains, he deter
mined on a piece of luxury-''one egg
to every man, and two to the excellent
ly valiant Schwepperman." Far more
than fsh---for its watery diet--eggs are
the scholars fare. fhey contain phos-
phorus, which is brain food, and sui
phur, which performs a variety of fuuc-
tons in the economy, And they are the
best of nutriment for children, for, in a
compact form, they contain everything
that is necessary for IT, growth of the
youthful frame. Eggs are, however,
not only food---they are medicine also.
The white il the most eficacious of
remedies for burns, and the oil extract
able from the yelk is regarded by the
Russians as an almost miraculous saive
for cuts, bruises, and scratches.
A raw egg, if swallowed in time, will
cfectually detach a fsh-bone in the
throat, and the white of two eggs will
rerder the deacsy corrosive 81 Ultimate as
harmless as a dose of calomel. They
strengthen the consumptivc, invigorate
the feeble, ard rem Ter the most suscep-
tible all but proof against jaundice in
its moro malignant phase. In France
alone the wine-clarifiers use more than
SO, 900, 900 a year; and the Alsatians
consume fully IS, 900, 900 in calico.
printing and for dressing the leather
used in making the finest of French kid
gloves Finally, not to mention various
other e~mployments for eggs in the arts,
they may, Of course, almost without
trouble on the farmers part, be CON
vertcd into fowls, which in any shape
are printable to the seller and welcome
to the buyer. Even eggshells are vaa.
able, for allopath and homeopath alike
agree in regarding them as the purest of
carbonate of lime.
Some fowls will lay Al many as 800
eggs per annum, while others do not
yield q third Of that number. But
il, according to the calculation
Of a correspondent whose figures
we printed some months ago, each
hen is credited witt 100 eggs.
there would be at least 600, 900, 900 of
eggs from our home fowl-house s, less
the 10, 900, 900 in process Of Matching.
This supply prodigious as it seems, is,
however, q mere trifie compared with
the quantity required. For if the egg
eaters Of the kingdom are putat %, OO0,
900 the number mentioned would not
admit Of each Of them consuming more
than about tWenty-four per annum.
This, Of course, IS far below the mark.
Many middle-class families use for the
Ireakfast-table and for cooking fully
100 per week, while co~nfectioners, hc-
tells, restaurants, and others must con-
sumo every day four Of five times as
many, to q noting+of the ~cratefuls abb
sorbed by various arts and manufac-
lures. In one Photographic establish
ment alone Q. 900, 900 are used every
| year whilo the amount required for va
rious processes in calico printing. leather