The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1902-04-22
SECRETS OF EGG TRADEI
The WINTER FRESH EGG NOW
PRACTICALLY A MYTH.
Now tho LINED Fresh Variety Came Into
Existence, and why IT'S Passing Out
or Nogue-Uso OF Compressed Air i'm
Cold Storage Worked tho Change.

Now tho LINED Fresh Variety Came Into
Existence, and why IT'S Passing Out
OF Vogue-Use OF Compressed Air in
Cold Storage Worked tho 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. 1T doesn't require very
| old man to remember when eggs were
almost invariably so few i'm the New
York market during the winter season
and the prices for them ruled so high.
that they were beyond the pocketEooll
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 rs n
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 Thcs-
plan output, rottener yet than the eggs.
When eggs came to market i'm those
days they were either fresh or they
| We're 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 rotten, and that was all there was
TO 1t.
well, there being no way to keep
the eggs the hens laid plentfully 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 it into his
head that it was possible to preserve
|
fruit. and he evolved 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 contded to its care for certain pc
Rod 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 1t was not long before the
consumer found the winter market
hush with eggs, ostensibly fresh. al
though their birth, as 4 matter of fact
antedatcd 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 price that en-
abled him to take home his dozen or
two with as much impunity and conf
! dence rs he had manifested on the
warm weather market
AT 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 We're quoted as fresh eggs. But
| In time, although he could not exactly
hold the eggs up rs objects of reproach
the consumer thought he detected
flavor to them that was not habitual
to the fresh-laid egg. Then they had n
disposition to crack their shell when
boiling, which he had not observed i'm
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
eeased they sank inertIy back to the lev
el 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
ana amateur, and the ever faithful ma
tive barnyard fowl was for the time
| sneered at, so the market gave It out
I that perhaps the odd and reluctant
character Of the prevailing winter
| fresh egg was due to the new strain of
( hen, and that 81 would he all right
/ again as soon as the consumer got
used to it, but it was no use. and by
and by the market gave it out that
these eggs were fresh eggs picked
Vow, anything picked being asso-
ciatcd i'm the mind Of the average per
son with articles laid down iu vinegar
/ chiefly cucumbers ana cabbage. ANA
consequently charged with more or less
ncidity. the consumer sconcd at picked
eggs as an explanation of the uncon-
veutiOnal character of this latest pro
duct Of the hen, ana the market tried
10 compromise with him by quoting
them as preserved eggs This would
not DO. You could fetch onto him your
peaches and pears as preserves. Gut not
eggs. So the market came right out
and said the eggs were lined. ana tha
went As lined eggs they have lived