gO WE FARM FOR A HOBBY 



is an egg? Never chock full. It is born with an air 

 cell in one end. Time and deterioration increase 

 the size of this air cell: the fresher the egg, the 

 smaller it is. Its outline is visible to the candler. 

 He can, therefore, grade according to cracks or 

 checks, spots, and air pockets. But gazing through 

 an egg held against a strong light, everything is 

 light and shadow black and white. It is impossi- 

 ble to candle eggs for yolk color, which is impor- 

 tant to palatability in an egg just as is the color 

 of the coffee to which you add cream. Color also 

 bears a traceable relation to actual food value: the 

 yellow vegetable pigment in the feed which deter- 

 mines the shade of the egg yolk is a vitamin me- 

 dium. 



Although eggs are usually sold the consumer 

 by count only, they are nearly always bought by 

 those who trade in them according to weight. Dis- 

 regarding the subnormal and abnormal, egg- 

 weight ranges from eighteen to thirty-two ounces 

 to the dozen; most egg scales are dialled from 

 nineteen to thirty. This is a huge variation: from 

 one and one-half to two and one-half ounces per 

 egg. It is quite enough to account for inexplicable 

 failures at cooking with otherwise meticulously 

 accurate recipes which indicate eggs numerically. 

 "One egg?'* What, an eighteen-ounce egg or a 

 thirty-ouncer? 



