Durango semi-weekly herald., 1902-05-01
,inter. The carrying charges in

winter. The carrying charges In
| the cold storage warehouses; range
from cent to cent and a third a
dozen for ordinary care until Jan. /.
Special care to the eggs may bring
the cost as high as three cents a
dozen. To this must be added the
profit to the speculator and the profit
to the wholesale distributor and the
wholesale dealer.
| Despite every effort, 1t is not be-
lieved that over 100000 cases of eggs
will be obtained for storage in Chi.
cago this year The amount al
ready put away is estimated at from
10000 to 175.000. and the best weeks
OF the season are already over.
There were stored 100000 cases last
year. Each case has thirty dozen
eggs. making a total of $4,000. 900
dozen. They cost IL or IL cents a
| dozen, and sold at 10 and 20 cents
and even more. The estimated av-
| erage profit of 33 1-3 per cent would
amount to close to $1,000. .000-and
that leaves warehouses outside of
Chicago entirely out of consideration.
This particular season of the year
is one at which eggs are going into
cold storage and chickens coming
out And for both eggs and chick
ems the prices that the consumer has
to pay have been on the average
higher this month than any April
In the past that commission mer-
chants can remember. The cold stor-
age warehouses stand as the most i'm
portant factors in the provision mar
ket. conditions which are responsi-
BILE for the present excessive prices.
There is hardly an article of per-
ishable food used on dinner tables in
cial corner In a cold storage ware
house. Hundreds of thousands of
beef. sheep and pig carcasses are
stored away in the freezers. Butter
enough to spread all the bread in the
country for day after day can be
found frozen solid in the great ware
houses. Potatoes by thousands of
carloads. celery. onions. cabbage and
beans. apples and California fruits of
all kinds are to be found there.
One of the most recent novelties
NJ the way vi eBB storage is the
method of filling pals full of the
whites and yolks and freezing the
mass solid. At the Armour and
Swift storage plants at the stock
yards hundreds of men are busy
breaking eggs into pals. AS fast as
the pals are filled they are taken in
to the freezing rooms. where they are
kept until taken out in the fall and
winter for the use of the National
Biscuit company. the Independent bak-
cries and restaurants. which need
them in cooking on a large scale
Anybody who cares to estimate
what immense profits three firms of
Armour, Swift and Prebe and Sine
ter have made on chickens this past
year. can get some idea form the
estimate of the size of their holdings
made by the South Water street mer-
chants. These well informed men
now hold at 100000 cases of about
100 pounds each, or $4,000, 900 pounds
This Is saying nothing at all of the
stock already sold Off
Broilers went into storage last
spring at and cents pound and
found ready sale all winter at 18
to 20 cents. Roasters, which are
chickens from three and one-half to
five pounds, were bought up at the
holiday time at and cents pound
and were sold at 13 cents. If the
average profit was five cents a pound
after paying storage expenses the
profit on even the amount of chickens
still in storage would run into the
millions. And the housewife and the
father of the family pay it all.
The Armour cold storage plant at
the stockyards alone is capable of
handling thirty-five carloads of pota-
toes. Potatoes are a favorite form
of speculation for the big manipulat-
ors of produce, an the latest market
reports show them to have climbed
above 81 bushel. an unheard of
price.
When it comes to apples the Ar.
mour experts are in their element
and do their best work, from an in
dividual commercial point of view
They make a descent upon big Mis-
souri, orchard. for example, buy the
crop just as 1t is on the trees from
the owner, send in their own labor
ers to pick it, barrel it and ship it to
the nearest available storage plant,
and then they await the profit that
is sure to come. Last year the prof
its were especially large.
In California fruits the cold stor-
age business has been worked out
with almost mathematical precision.
The experts know exactly how long
it is safe to leave each kind of fruit
in storage, considering the condition
at the time it was picked. Records
of each consignment are kept, and the
fruit is put on the market at the best
possible moment, considering this
Limitation of the time it will keep.
The Western Cold Storage company
in Chicago is said to be the largest
in the country. 1t has a capacity of
100000 cubic feet, and, according to
Rockwell King. president of the com
pany. this space is almost filed the