PRESERVING EGGS FOR MARKET. 8? 



like other eggs. In the New York market they usually 

 bring about five cents a dozen less than fresh eggs. 

 When packing eggs for private use, it is well to wait un- 

 til September, when the fowls, having had a good run 

 on the stubble fields and about grain barns, begin to 

 lay plentifully, and eggs become cheap. Take perfectly 

 fresh eggs, and pack them in a butter firkin, or barrel, 

 and pour over them milk of lime, or thick lime- wash, 

 after it has cooled, and head up the keg ; or pour over 

 them the strongest brine ; or smear the eggs with cotton- 

 seed or linseed oil, and pack them on their broad ends 

 in wheat bran in a keg, barrel, or box, very tightly, and 

 each week turn it over so as to reverse the position of 

 the eggs. The last method has been found to be exceed, 

 ingly satisfactory. Eggs packed in dry salt will not keep 

 for any great length of time. 



PACKING EGGS IN A BARREL. 



A great number of eggs are lost every year through 

 imperfect packing. The salable value of a package of 

 eggs is measured by that of the poorest part of it ; the 

 good always have their value diminished by the bad ; 

 but the poor eggs are never raised in value by the good. 

 If by poor packing any part is damaged, the whole is 

 depreciated together. A badly packed barrel of eggs is 

 a miserable thing to look at, and worse still to handle, 

 especially when the weather is warm and a very few old 

 nest eggs have been packed with the good ones, which 

 does sometimes happen in spite of care, though not when 

 only glass nest eggs, which never spoil, are used. The 

 barrel should be a good one, clean, strong, and well 

 hooped. At the bottom is placed three inches in depth of 

 clean, dry, sweet rye or wheat straw, cut in a fodder-cut- 



