The San Francisco call., 1895-10-09

month or two they have a fair fighting
| chance, it would seem, sufficient TO prevent
eggs in our flush time going very much
below thisyear's rates.
Few farmers proposing to go into the
egg business are likely to understand how
closely eggs are graded in the markets.
They will be likely to suppose that "eggs
are eggs,' anyhow. The press quotations
can never show all the gradations in price,
| and there are nearly always shipments
that sell higher than the highest and lower
than the lowest quotations. 1t is so in all
produce. In gathering data for this article
dealer told me there was full IL cents per
dozen difference in the obtainable price of
iranch eggs" in his stock that day. The
best he had sold quick at 35 cents; other
| lots were hard to move at all at Ii.
The latter were those that some
thrifty housewife, noting that ranch
eggs sold highest in the market, had been
carefully saving for two or three weeks till
she got a case full to ship. They complied
with the description of ranch eggs, for they
came direct from the farm to the market,
but the hot September weather of the in
terror had been too much for them. They
might not have actually spoiled, but they
had evaporated until the contents got loose
in the shell and. the trip to the City had
mixed their interiors all up. Their best
use was for scrambled eggs in cheap res
taurants. And still the shipper will be
apt to denounce his commission merchant
as fraud ulent rascal when he gets returns
at Is cents and sees ranch eggs quoted at
80 to 35 cents, as they are in this moPning's IS
| CALL.
"Ranoh eggs" are those put in cases on
the farm and shipped direct to market.
''otore eggs" are those collected by coun-
try dealers and cased and shipped by them.
In the spring when all eggs are good. they
are but a cent or two below ranch eggs. AS
the season advances there is more differ
ence. The California market demands
white eggs, the Eastern market yellow.
Select" ranch eggs are all white, fresh,
clean, OF uniform size, and weighing about
seven to the pound; ~choice" have the
same qualities, but weigh about eight to
the pound. Any admixture of colored,
dirty, small or stale eggs reduces them to
second class and subjects them to rejection
| II sold for first. The purchaser cannot stop
10 go to the bottom of the case in
examination The producer must guaran-
! tee the quality. Nothing on earth except
| trouble and a bad name is gained by put
| ting inferior eggs at the bottom OF the
cases, as | am told is done by some, who
| perhaps curse their mission man tor
dishonesty when they get small returns.
What happens is this: The customer takes
| home his eggs, finds out what they are,
decides what he will pay, and notifies the
commission man that he will pay so much
or return the eggs. He promptly gets
new bill at the reduced price, and the
| commission man, not wishing to drive
away a customer by writing him
that he has been caught cheating, says
| nothing about it. | am told by poultry
| men, commission men and buyers that
there is enough of this practice to justify
this caution. The fact is-and we may as
smart enough to beat the city men by such
methods. They are never practiced by ex-
| perienced poultrymen.
Our competition is from eggs produced
in the Mississippi Valley and the South.
Active buyers begin collecting eggs about
March at the extreme south, working
north as the season advances, and closing
in Minnesota about July. Thev buy eggs
during about the first two months OF the
laying season. OF course, buying goes on
through the year, but the later eggs do not
keep so well, and are not so much sought.
These eggs, often supplying current de-
mand, go to cold storage in distributing
centefs, and are brought out as the supply
increases and the market warrants. There
are at present about 100000 cases in
SbO1dEC III SOuIltIF ID-udJ. II COpY Vi
the Waterloo Egg Reporter before me
shows the usual prices paid producers in
August of this year to be: In Tennessee
cents, in iowa cents, Wisconsin 10 cents,
Texas cents, Arkansas 7 cents, Missouri
cents, Minnesota 8 cents. Nebraska
cents, Michigan 10 cents. Earlier in the
season they were doubtless lower, but
have not the data to determine how much.
To these prices paid producers must. be
added local merchants profit, freight to
distributing center, and wholesale or COM
mission merchants profits, on sales in car
load lots.
Whenever eggs in this market become
so high that Eastern eggs purchased at
above prices can be protitably sold here
after paying cents dozen freight, plus
refrigerator-car service of probably / cent,
shipments begin. This season they began
IN June, when ranch eggs were II to IS
cents, in the face of which Eastern eggs
sold at 16 to 1871. They are selling to-day
at IL to q, with store eggs 18 to 81. East
ern eggs are preferred by the bakers trade
because they are yellower and stronger"
as they say-that is giving moro of the
appearance and results which should come
from q liberal use of eggs than our own
ighter-colored, wheat-fed product. They
are also largely used by the poorer families.
They will always prevent our own eggs
only exclude them from this market by
selling our own eggs so cheaply as to make
the sales of Eastern eggs impossible. This
is not what poultrymen will like, but we
seem to be gradually doing it. In 1889 we
imported $4,000 cases of thirty dozen,
which has been gradually reduced to an
importation of Sc 600 cases in 1894.
The difficulty we have is that we COM
pete with Eastern farmers, with whom
eggs are mostly by-product, costing them
nothing as they reckon it. Increasing
thrift of our own farmers seems likely to
bring more home competition OF this kind
and become the factor which may drive
out Eastern eggs, which should be possi-
bic with a protective freight tariff of five
cents dozen. But there will always
be market at fair prices for the best fresh
eggs. Those who learn how to produce
these at least expense will do well. Those
whose fowls become lousy or sickly or
who are otherwise careless or wasteful will
lose money.
The above is very imperfect study of
the prospects of the poultry business, but
points out the things which my corre-
spondent should study carefully before en-
oapiDp in ii And this is all fbot ic aDDro