Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-11-04
EGGS ARE HIGH.
Reasons for Their Present Scarcit,
Clearly Set Forth.

Not for many years has the price of
eggs at this season of the year been so
high as it is at present. Two or three
causes contribute to this result. In the
first place the natural production of eggs
weather. The biddies are getting on their
winter plumage and they cannot very
well engage largely in egg-laying when
they are making and putting on new
coat of feathers to prepare them to with
stand the on-coming cold. Then it is a
season when high prices for eggs always
rule and which hold up well until after
Thanksgiving. But this fall there is an
other good reason for~the exceptional
high price of eggs. On account of the
high price of beef last season eggs We're
consumed instead of meat. In all the
rural towns and large villages of the
State which, one year with another,
send considerable quantities of eggs to
our Maine cities and even to Boston dur
ing the late spring months, eggs were
largely consumed at the point of produc
ton. This not only kept them back from
our cities causing a firm market and high
prices all the spring, but it also kept
them from cold storage-the eggs which
go into cold storage for fall and winter
consumption being mainly those produced
in March and April. Indeed, even Feb
ruary eggs are largely used for refriger-
ator purposes, for between February and
May eggs touch as low a price in mar
ket as at any period of the year. and it
is when lowest in price that they are
most largely purchased for cold storage.
When eggs are eaten by those who raise
them all through the country towns be-
cause beef is too scarce and too high to
be obtained there is no surplus to go into
storage at any price. This, of course, re-
suits in a scarcity Of eggs and high
prices ell through the year.
The storage of eggs in refrigerator
houses has become a business of quite
large proportions. Among the places in
ca stern Maine where it is made con-
siderable industry, Belfast and towns in
Waldo county in back of that city,
Brooks, Unity, Thorndike and Monroe,
have been longest in the business. 1t was
in towns in that section that it was
first tried as an experiment and men
there have been in the business for nearly
20 years.
brought across the lines from the British
provinces which go into cold storage at
refrigerator houses in towns along the
line of the railroads in the eastern paris
of the State.
The present high price of eggs, while
sure to drop after Thanksgiving and in
early winter when the fresh pullets
commence to lay, should turn the at
tention of Maine farmers to the growing
importance of poultry raising and egg
production as a business. Eggs are not
likely to be as low in price for years
to come as they have been in past years
because beef is likely to remain much
higher and the experience Of the sum
uer lust ended must have taught the
people how much better eggs are than
meat as a summer food, hence they will
depend more upon eggs and less upon
beef in future. The poultry of the farm
should be one of the best paying and
most productive branches of the agricul-
ture of Maine With our growing mar
kets due to the vast number of summer
residents in Maine. the demand for
spring broilers, for fresh eggs and for
fall poultry is ever on the increase.
Poultry raising should no longer be as it
is now one of the minor ana neglected
branches of the farm industry. IT should
be a leading and cash paying branch;
With warm quarters for hens. with good
feed and care they will produce eggs all
winter when the highest price Is OBTAIN
ed and consequently the larger profit.
If high beef causes our farmers to pro-
jtca and consume more eggs ii will be
better for the general health ana the pub
lie purse.