STUDIES OF POULTRY. 29 



shows a market house in which mechanically refrigerated boxes have 

 entirely replaced ice boxes, and which provides chilled show cases. 



The temperature of a first-class ice box is, ordinarily, about 45 F. 

 (7 C.). Ice and salt, with a system which enables the brine to cir- 

 culate, gives temperatures approximating the chill room and can be 

 advantageously used by the middlemen if mechanical refrigeration 

 can not be obtained or when ice is cheap. 



The installation of mechanical refrigeration of one type or another 

 is growing, rapidly among the more progressive middlemen. The 

 retailer still depends almost exclusively on an ice box for the keeping 

 of his stock. Many retail merchants doing a large business are adopt- 

 ing the practice of obtaining fresh supplies daily from their whole- 

 saler's chill room, especially if they deal in dry-packed poultry. 

 Those who still cling to the old methods of ice packing generally use 

 zinc-lined, drained boxes in which poultry and fine ice are mixed 

 together. 



When it is recalled that, including the time consumed in the haul, 

 the time required by the commission man to dispose of his stock, the 

 time that the retailer keeps his goods before all are sold, and the day 

 or two that the housewife may keep the fowls before cooking them, 

 about three weeks elapse between the date of killing and the time of 

 consumption, it will be recognized that every step in the handling of 

 dressed poultry demands perfection of detail if the product in our 

 markets is to be good. 



About three weeks is the amount of time commonly needed for (lie 

 marketing of chilled poultry in the large cities of the East, North, 

 and Far West. In the Middle West, which is nearer the sources of 

 abundant production, the marketing time is shorter ; and in the South 

 climatic conditions and a general lack of refrigerating facilities neces- 

 sitate prompt movement of perishable stuff of all kinds. 



FROZEN POULTRY. 



Freezing poultry during the season of excess production, and hold- 

 ing it in that condition until the season of shortage arrives, has become 

 a trade practice in the United States. Goods so kept are commonly 

 called " cold-stored," though it is a difficult matter to draw a sharp 

 distinction between produce which is held for weeks in a chill room, 

 yet is accepted on the market as " fresh," and that which is frozen for 

 transportation or marketing purposes and held, possibly for several 

 weeks, in a frozen state, and goes, therefore, as " storage." 



Unfortunately, " cold-stored " poultry has too frequently been 

 synonymous with market stocks, held for sale in an unfrozen condition 

 until the last minute, then put into the freezer in undesirable pack- 

 ages and already showing evidences of decomposition. Usually the 



[Cir. 64] 



