STUDIES OF POULTRY. 35 



should be stacked with air spaces of at least an inch around each, 

 and from twenty-four to seventy-two hours will be required for chill- 

 ing, depending upon the size of the room and the number of boxes. 



The condensation of moisture on the shell of an egg, due to its 

 passage from a lower to a higher temperature, is quite as disastrous 

 to its good keeping as it is to that of dressed poultry. Hence, until 

 the egg reaches the cold-storage warehouse it is advisable to maintain 

 a temperature of 40 F. (4 C.), since this is more readily approxi- 

 mated in refrigerator cars, commission houses, refrigerators, etc., than 

 is a lower temperature. 



Large egg dealers are now providing not only chill rooms for short 

 holdings, but a room as near 40 F. (4 C.) as possible for the 

 candling and sorting of the eggs. The more progressive men at the 

 receiving points are transferring eggs from the freight stations to 

 their establishments with all the expedition and care that is given 

 dressed poultry, especially during the latter part of the season of 

 excess production, when prices are suitable for storage but quality 

 is apt to be low because of warm weather. 



Already the packers who have installed refrigeration for eggs, who 

 are grading carefully in refrigerated rooms, shipping in refrigerated 

 cars to jobbers with refrigerated receiving rooms, are setting a new 

 standard in the markets. Formerly eggs were graded very largely by 

 the locality from which they came, those nearest to the market being 

 generally accepted as freshest, while eggs from the South were graded 

 lower merely from the name on the end of the box. Receivers are 

 learning, however, that a good flock of hens supplemented by good 

 handling, in Virginia or Tennessee, means just as good eggs in New 

 York as when they are sent from northern Illinois or from Michigan ; 

 and careless handling in Pennsylvania or New Jersey results in just 

 as many rots, spots, and bad-flavored stocks as come from more distant 

 points where care and refrigeration preserve quality. 



The problem of getting eggs to the consumer in the hot season in 

 good condition is a proposition which can not be solved by refrigera- 

 tion alone, yet it is one in which refrigeration plays a part second only 

 to the education of the farmer and that of the country storekeeper in 

 determining the quality of eggs. Every packer who installs refrig- 

 eration becomes a center of improvement in his community, since he 

 urges better handling prior to his receipt of the eggs, knowing that 

 his chilling system will take care of them afterwards until they reach 

 the market. Such tendencies are already launched in the egg indus- 

 try. Within the next few years it is probable that rapid advances will 

 be made in the conservation of this most important food, not only in 

 greater production, but, what amounts to the same thing, the saving 

 and making available in a wholesome condition of a large proportion 



[Cir. 64] 



