Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-07-21
Ehrntng Uf1at

When does an egg become stale
Is the biggest question of the hour
in the Pennsylvania State Govern
ment just at this stage of prepara-
ton to enforce the new laws of 1919
and it is the cause of more cor
respondence with certain branches
of offcialdom than even appropria-
tions. 1t will affect not only q
quarter million egg producers but
thousands of people in the provision
and grocery trade and interest over
/ a million buyers and eight times
that many consumers. From being
a rather. obscure bill in a session of
the general assembly filled with dis
cussion about city charters, rates of
compensation for injured workmen.
what constitutes a drink that has
authority" salaries of teachers and
lights on farm wagons, the measure
has become n law interesting most
of the population of the State and
calling for an official ruling as
solemn as the amount of nourishing
matter that may be permitted in
| HIN OHueI Tie llSW law, SheSliNo
at once, eggs which are stale may
not be offered for sale as fresh. This
does not affect the cold storage egg
! directly as under the new law ex-
tending the time of storage for all
provisions everything that has been
so handled must be plainly marked
as cold storage food. The stale egg
occupies an intermediate position
and when the time came to rule
| n a Of Ig L.
| had varying notions and some of the
letters that reached the Capitol sug-
gested that eggs be tested by being
put into water or held up to the light.
Some people suggested q week as q
| limit of freshness" and q few ex-
tremists wanted forty eight hours.
Differences of opinion were so
marked that Director James Foust
of the State Food Bureau, took the
whole matter to Secretary of Agri-
culture Fred Rasmussen and then
they decided to call in the chemist
of the bureau and find out how long
an egg kept under ordinary condi-
tions stays wholesome, the exper-
fence of chemists and food agents
and get the consensus of opinion of
just when fresh" must be replaced
as an official designation by stale"
and how the thousands and thou
|
to handle eggs so as to stay safely
inside the law and not lose money
| and customers. The chemists are
coming here tomorrow with results
of tests and all sorts of data and will
spend day at it.
July's unprecedented wet wealth
er seems to have either drowned out
the eseventeen-year-o old locusts or sent
frfn hni 1,.o 20
wait for pleasanter skies. May and
June reports of presence of the tree
damaging pests in Dauphin and
Cumberland counties have not been
followed up since the last week of
June by anything like what was ex-
pected and some of the amateur
naturalists here are inclined to be-
lieve that the weather man has put
a damper on the activities of the
locusts. Numerous specimens were
dug out of the ground all through
the lower half of the Cumberland
valley during the spring and sent
here for Identification, but the
ravages of the pests seem to have
been "spotty" during the early sum-
mer and to have been materially
| lessened since the coming of the un-
usually rainy season of July. Tho
question is one which has been taken
tory Society members and high
school instructors in natural history
in schools as something well worth
observing.
With few exceptions almost every
armory of the more than forty own
ed by the State has been prepared
for the organization of the units of
the National Guard of Pennsylvania
m fa
Armory Board indicate that by fall
all will be in readiness. Most of the
armories have been occupied by Re-
serve Militia units which have also
used the ranges. Just what effect
the ruling of the War Department
cutting down the Pennsylvania Guard
to 1000 men will have, has not been
determined and will be the subject
of a conference between Governor
William C. Sproul, Major General
William G. Price and Adjutant Cen
eral Frank D. Beary. 1t is possible
that places which were originally
planned to have companies of in
fantry will have platoons as has been
the case with the Militia. The new
Guard will be about twice as large
as the Militia, but have more
auxiliary units. Owing to the great
interest in military matters there is
u lldI may De IN
dependent organizations formed as
was done after the Civil War. Some
of these organizations, which were
kept up by their communities, were
eventually merged with the National
Guard. They would not be officially
encouraged now, however.
The fact that the Beaver Memorial
Library at DanVille may be COM
PEELED to suspend service unless it
gets financial assistance has attracted
some attention here. because reports
from a number of places indicate
that public Libraries. like everything
else of public character have been
hard hit by prices. Some of the old
established libraries have been
forced to curtail their service.