The suburban citizen., 1902-03-01
| SECRETS OF EGG TRADE
THE WINTER FRESH EGG NOW
PRACTICALLY A MYTH.

of VOgue--Use OF Compressed Air In
Cold Storage Worked the Change.
"There is not one dozen lined eggs
In market to-day where there were a
hundred dozens Of them ten years ago"
said an egg dealer, referring to the al
legged corner in eggs now agitating To-
cal dealers. at doesn't require very
old man to remember when eggs were
almost invariably so few in the New
York market during the winter season
and the prices for them ruled so high,
that they were beyond the pocketbook
of the average consumer This was
not because Of any corner in eggs, nor
Of any attempt Of those who supplied
the market with eggs to hold them
back for high prices. 1t would have
been impossible to corner or hold back
eggs in those days because there was
no way in which the life Of an egg as a
rule could be preserved more than two
or three days. The hens laid just as
willingly then in warm weather as
they do now, and were just as reluc-
tant to fill the nest in cold weather as
they are now. But in former times
the warm weather eggs had to be dis
posed of and used without undue delay
or they became precarious substances,
objects Of just suspicion, and of no pos
sible use except, perhaps, as an occa-
sional tribute to some passing Thes-
plan output, rottener yet than the eggs.
"When eggs came to market in those
days they were either fresh or they
were not. There were no intermediate
degrees of freshness. If they were not
fresh they were classed as stale. If
they had passed the stale stage they
were rottenAand that was all there was
to 1t.
"Well, there being no way to keep
the eggs the hens laid plentifully in the
spring and summer until the season
when the laying became merely matter
of form and occasional evidence of
good faith on the part of the hens, the
winter supply was necessarily small
and the price correspondingly large.
Then, along toward the close Of the
Civil War, chemist probably lover
of eggs, yet unwilling to pay the big
winter price for them, got 1t into his
head that 1t was possible to preserve
hen fruit as well as any other kind of
fruit, and he evolved a pickle composed
of water lime, salpetre and salt, which
he commended to the rural producer of
eggs. The rural producer of eggs con-
sidered the pickle, and found that an
egg confided to its care for a certain Pc
rlod became impervious to the assaults
Of time, as it were, and could be put on
the market in good and wholesome con-
dition months after the hen had parted
with it. This revolutionized the egg in
dustry, and it was not long before the
consumer found the winter market
flush with eggs, ostensibly fresh, al
though their birth, as a matter of fact,
antedated by many weeks their advent
as conservers of the domestic economy
in the hard boil, the soft, the medium
or in the poach or in the fry, one side
or turned over, and at a price that en-
abled him to take home his dozen or
two with as much lmpunity and conf
dence as he had manifested ON the
warm weather market.
cat first no hint escaped from the
market that these generous offerings
Of the hens were not contemporaneous
with the season then on hand, and the
eggs were quoted as fresh eggs. But
| in time, although he could not exactly
hold the eggs up as objects of reproach,
the consumer thought he detected a
flavor to them that was not habitual
to the fresh-laid egg. Then they had a
disposition to crack their shell when
boiling, which he had not observed In
the egg he used to gather at the old
farm when the hen cackled. And his
wife discovered that these eggs de-
clined to respond with any degree Of
| willingness to her efforts to beat them
to that frothy and foamy condition re-
quired for the successful fabrication Of
the pudding or the cake, and that when
| they had at last been induced to come
to taw in that respect they arrived
there so overcome with WEAKNESS that
when the stimulation Of the beater
ceased they sank inertly back to the lev
ell of the platter, something which no
heretofore fresh egg had ever been
guilty of doing.
"That was the time when the fad
for all sorts and conditions of imported
fowls had taken strong hold on poul-
trymen and egg raisers, professional
and amateur, and the ever faithful ma
tive barnyard fowl was for the time
sneered at, so the market gave 1t out
that perhaps the odd and reluctant
character Of the prevailing winter
fresh egg was due to the new strain Of
hen, and that 1t would be all right
again as soon as the consumer got
used to it, but 1t was no use, and by
and by the market gave 1t out that
these eggs were fresh eggs picked.
Now, anything picked being asso-
ciated in the mind of the average per-
son with articles laid down In vinegar,
chiefly cucumbers and cabbage, and
consequently charged with more or less
acidity, the consumer scoffed at picked