MARKETING EGGS AND POULTRY 359 



The substance of the state laws that are now in force are 

 that keeping eggs or other products in cold storage for 

 thirty days makes them storage products. Any such product 

 offered for sale must be stamped as such either on the 

 package or product itself. The time limit of storage is, in 

 New York, ten months ; in some states nine months. 



Effect on Prices. With storage eggs thus stamped and 

 sold, the poultryman can have no valid reason for object- 

 ing to the product. It is doubtful if the high price of 

 selected fresh eggs will be appreciably affected by the sale 

 of storage eggs. The people who buy storage or second 

 grade eggs are not the ones who make the price for select 

 eggs. It is pointed out that twenty years ago eggs sold 

 during the surplus season in some states at 6 and 8 cents 

 a dozen. Now they barely touch 15 cents at the lowest. 

 There is no evidence, however, that this advance is wholly 

 or in part due to cold storage, nor can it be proven that the 

 much higher prices now received during the period of 

 scarcity is due to cold storage. The fact is, however, that 

 during the growth of refrigeration the price of eggs has 

 been climbing upward. 



There may be reason for the claim that the higher pre- 

 vailing prices during the surplus season are due to the 

 taking from the market of a large proportion of the eggs 

 and putting them into cold storage. It is reported in the 

 evidence of a Senate Investigating Committee that the daily 

 consumption of eggs in New York City during the spring 

 of 1910 was 12,000 cases. The receipts were about three 

 times as much. "What would happen to the market with 

 receipts three times the consumption without a storage out- 

 let? Clearly, the only thing that would save the eggs from 

 being dumped into the harbor or thrown back on the farms 

 as fertilizer would be such a reduction in prices that the 

 people would consume the eggs. The storage business, 



