Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1908-01-17

WILL SPNS. .A~~'
The cold storage egg lis of course
chen fruit" Not many years ago 1t
was proclaimed that a process had
been discovered whereby fresh eggs
could be manufactured like wooden
nutmegs, but these egg machinfsts
met the same fate as the patent rain
makers who went to the western rain
less regions with their dynamite bal
looms to make thunderstorms to order.
The hen lays the cold storage egg.
however distant it seems to be re-
moved from its primordial ancestor.
In the cheap season hucksters gather
them from the farms; poultrymen
haul them to the railroad stations;
grocerymen. who trade them In. de-
liver them f. O. b., and all together the
Grated eggs are freighted to wholesale
houses and the "trust." Now, If these
millions of eggs were all good or the
men who handle them were all careful
isr honest the cold storage eggs would
be of better quality and the prejudice
against them not SO great. But listen!
Farmers, as a rule, are not very par
ficular about eggs. Few of them nave
GOOD henhouses and nesting places
The result is the hens hatch and lay
in any old place.
They lay in the haymow, next in
heat to hades on a hot day; they drop
their eggs under the roosts and in the
cow stables; they steal their nests
under the hogpens and in many other
places where heat and filth soon rob
them of their beauty and sweetness.
Eggs found in stolen nests are often
too old to vote The farmer always
leaves a nest egg to lure the speckled
hen back. 1t may be changed the next
day, or it may serve in its honorable
capacity for three months before IL
finds it's way to an epicures table In
the city as ''ffesh stock laid while you
wait" How well we remember the
day on the farm when we found a
nest with ten dozens of eggs in the
corner of the haymow!
If one hen laid them all they were
the product of 1SO hard days work
that is, if she laid regularly every other
day, but the best type hen sweats to
lay 200 year.
How we exulted one day when we
spied a half bushel Of eggs under the
old hogpen!
We squeezed under and hauled them
out. and grandma sold them to the
huckster for 10 cents a dozen. But
whisper it softly, the hens had been
Matching and rehatching under that
pigpen through all the ages of man.
You might think all the eggs shipped
from a modern poultry plant were
fresh. Let me lift the lid. There are
a great many CASTOR eggs at poultry
plants. Some set as high as 1OO,OOO
eggs season. In some seasons from
80 to 60 per cent do not hatch. After
the large incubators are running five
days the eggs are tested by passing
them before a strong light. All eggs
that do not have a bloody-like spider
IN them are rejected. This spider is
the live germ, and you can follow up
its development till toward the twenty
first day, when you can see the chick
en- wiggle in the shell.
On the fifteenth there is another test.
The eggs rejected are the following:
Clear or infertile. with red streak
or ruptured blood vessel. black spot
or dead germ, cracked and rotten AT
the end of the hatch among those left
are the eggs with dead chicks in them
Now you can see how much latitude
q blackleg in the egg business has fol-
trickery.
The infertile eggs are clear, and one
can hardly distinguish them from fresh
eggs. Bakers often use them In their
manufacture Of wholesome cakes and
pastry. But some poultrymen will mix
: these rejected eggs with good stock
and sell them to wholesalers, and some
wholesalers will ship them to retailers
and storage companies, and then they
go to the hotels. boarding houses, res
taurants and private families. ant
that's where the 'kick" comes in.
GAMBLING EGGS.-But let us actu
ally follow these eggs into wholesale
house where they do an honest bust
ness. They are preparing eggs fo
storage Three or four carloads art
stacked around, and some have beeI
shipped clear from California. w
open a crate of California goods, ant
they are certainly crackerjacks-large
white. beautiful eggs. superior in siz
to the eastern White Leghorn ant
Minorca What fine stock they mus
have in the state of orange groves an
giant redwoodS!
We now go into the candling room
which is pitch dark. The operate
turns on light which is in Il box. :
hole about two-thirds the size of a
egg goes clear through the box. an
the strong light shines through thes
holes. At each opening an employe
Is passing eggs before the light Be
fore he passes the egg it is tapped t
see if the shell is perfect. All egg
that are not clear. that are cracked c
have dirty shells are thrown out
The soiled and cracked eggs are sol
to the bakers, canned, frozen or mad
into apo nowder. The bad eggs al