The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1914-04-01
Government Specialists Seek to Put
an End to Loss Of 100000
Each Twelve
Month.
DUE TO BAD HANDLING
Must Educate People TO Keep Hen
Fruit In Cool Place
and While
Shipping.

The annual American egg crop is es
timated to be worth S500.000.000. but
according to the egg specialists OF the
department Of agriculture the value Of
our eggs should be s700,000.00O. Be-
tween the hen and the consumer, there
Is a waste Of 5000 900 900 annually. or
this waste, $5O.000.OOo is due to need
less breakage OF eggs in transit from
the nest to the retailer. The balance,
$50, 100000, represents unnecessary
adding, spelling and deterioration OF
good eggs due to bad handling. The
egg as the hen lays 1t is almost invar-
iably a good egg. But one out of ev-
cry ten eggs which she lays for market
is broken in shipment. Three out Of
the remaining nine good eggs are so
badly handled that they are either stale
or of much lower market grade by
the time they are opened by the house
wife or dropped into the boiling water.
In other words, not more than six out
of every ten eggs laid by the little gray
:
like the shape that nature intended
when she provided this form of food
for humans. This means that about
40 per cent Of our eggs are fl only for
unusually strong palates or for use in
tanning feathers or else 60 to add to
the crematory bills and dump heap
bills of our great cities-the unpleas-
ant monuments to needle s American
waste of good food in the face Of low
cred food production and increasing
population.
Uncle Sam, through his department
Of agriculture, Is tacklipg this problem
of egg food waste in two practical
ways. Through the bureau Of animal
industry he is trying to teach people
how to raise more and bigger eggs and
also how to raise pullets at such time
and feed them in such ways that they
Will lay In the fall after the hens have
stopped laying. But Uncle Sam also
! feels that it will take an awful lot of
egg raising TO meet the demand II
about four eggs out of every ten get
smashed or contribute to the size of
| his costly garbage heap. He Is doing
his utmost to see If he cannot get those
four extra eggs to the table. Of his
nieces and nephews with whole shells
and insides that will promote rather
than kill egg appetites.
To Lesson Breakagc Of Eggs.
The country gets its eggs from the
great central corn belt, where the gray
hen does not have to scratch so hard
for her living. Egg production on tie
east coast and on the Pacific coast con
sists principally Of eggs raised for in
dividual home use or for the fancy loo
al trade in newly laid eggs. There
are not nearly enough left over to sup
ply the cities and towns. The import
ant supply Of eggs along our coasts
therefore must come by rail consider
able distances from the central corn
belt In the past. every mile the egg
had to travel meant broken eggs
and the arrival of 'scrambles' in New
York Before eggs were shipped in
refrigerator cars every mile travelled
through the summer heat meant good
eggs do. eriOrating, growing more and
more stale and nearer the explosive
stage-30 per cent of each car lot low
cred in value, and per cent or more
consigned to the dumping barges Of
the coast cities.
Use Shock Recorders.
The latest exp ariment undertaken
with the egg crates has been to place
delicate instruments which record
shocks In such crates and ship them
across the country At the end OF
the journey, the instrument shows
exactly the force of the blows that
the case has undergone and conse-
quently the amount of shock from
which the eggs have to be protected.
AS fast as experience proves any de-
vice to be practical. the departments
discoveries are made common knowl-
edge throughout the egg handling
trade. Meanwhile, the department is
sending its egg and poultry demon
stration car through the corn belt ana
showing egg shippers all the little i'm
prov ements in egg grading, Gambling
and packing that the experiments
have revealed.
Trying to Save $16o,ooo,ooo.
If the hens laid eggs regularly all
the year round and the supply were
constant, the saving Of eggs from the
tanneries and the dumps would not
be so complicated It would largely
be a matter of teaching the farm rs
to gather the eggs from the nests
before a long hot day has had time
to start them by increase in tempera
turs on the downward road through
blood rings, spots, floaters, white rots,
black rots and other downright rots
as the eggs history from goodness