COMPARATIVE RATE OF DECOMPOSITION IN MARKET POULTRY. 11 



deterioration is plainly visible the actual quantity, though increased 

 as compared with the original ammonia content of the flesh, is still 

 low. 



Though the chemical analyses of the second samples indicate 

 changes which are regular and slow, the number of bacteria in the 

 body wall at this time shows that deterioration will go on rapidly if 

 conditions prevail which are favorable to bacterial life. Even if the 

 temperature be kept below 45 F., which is about the usual tem- 

 perature of the retailer's ice box, the breaking-down processes gather 

 force as they go, until finally, sometimes in a day or two, sometimes 

 in just a few hours, they become so violent that the flesh is no longer 

 wholesome. 



Samples 3 and 4 were taken during retailing, No. 3 when the 

 retailer's stock from the experimental car lot was at least half 

 exhausted, the other at the very last of the marketing or a little later 

 than the retailer's regular sales, if the general market happened to 

 be dragging. 



With one exception, the last samples of the undrawn fowls were 

 still edible, though they were stale. Generally the wire drawn were 

 close to the undrawn, while the Boston drawn were distinctly lower 

 grade and sometimes were not edible. The full-draw r n fowls at the 

 end of marketing were not only in the worst condition, but only 

 occasionally w r ere they fit for food. 



It is during the sojourn in the shop of the retailer that the effects 

 of dressing and handling show most decisively. Samples 3 and 4 as 

 charted indicate decided increases in the compounds which signify 

 decomposition, and these increases vary greatly with the dressing. 

 There is a wide difference between the undrawn and full-drawn in 

 favor of the former. Between these two extremes stand the wire and 

 the Boston draw r n, the latter showing the greater amount of decom- 

 position. The wire drawn stand very close to the undrawn, and until 

 retrograde changes in the flesh are established they show rather less 

 change than the other lots. After the decomposition has well begun, 

 however, the wire drawn are less desirable than those in which the 

 intestines are left untouched. The irregularity of the behavior of the 

 wire-drawn and Boston-drawn birds is evidenced by the variation in 

 the different samples. There was also a wide variation in the condi- 

 tion of the different birds in a single sample, some being much better 

 than others. Hence the analyses of fowls dressed according to these 

 two methods show that sometimes one, sometimes the other, gave the 

 better result. It is more instructive, therefore, to compare these data 

 with those for the undrawn and the full-drawn birds rather than with 

 each other. 



The number of bacteria in the flesh multiply so enormously during 

 retailing that arithmetic can scarcely keep pace with them, and the 



