1862. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



347 



For the yew England Farmer. 



ON THE KEEPING- PROPEKTIES OP 

 EGGS. 



Mr. Browx : — Having read occasionally some 

 contro\'crsy in the N. E. Farmer concerning the 

 keeping properties of producti\^ eggs?, or those 

 containing a germ, compared with unproductive 

 eggs, which are unimpregnated, I wish to commu- 

 nicate a few observations on the subject. Persons 

 who have been accustomed to raising fowls, must 

 have observed that, if there are several eggs left in 

 the nest of a h«n, after she has hatched her brood, 

 in frequent instances, some of these remaining 

 eggs, when broken, appear to be fresh and unin- 

 jured, while others are entirely rotten, or contain 

 dead chickens. Now those eggs which have not 

 been materially injured by the warmth of the hen's 

 body during the period of incubation, are such as 

 never contained a germ; and those Avhich are rot- 

 ten, are eggs that contained a germ that had per- 

 ished. I have always, therefore, made it a prac- 

 tice to examine the eggs in the nest of a setting 

 hen, after she has sat upon them five days, and 

 take away all those in which the process of incu- 

 bation has not commenced. This is easily deter- 

 mined by holding the eggs against a strong light, 

 which makes apparent the little net work of blood 

 vessels forming within all the productive eggs, 

 and reveals the clear transparency of the unpro- 

 ductive ones. By this means I save all the eggs 

 which are not going to produce chickens, before 

 they have been injured by the warmth of the hen ; 

 if I left them a longer time, those eggs which con- 

 tained a perished germ, would soon become cor- 

 rupted, though the eggs that never contained a 

 germ would bear this temperature with impunity 

 for several weeks. 



But as the public is always better satisfied if an 

 individual who makes a doubtful assertion, should 

 establish it by the testimony of some high author- 

 ity, as well as by his own experience, I have made 

 an abstract of some remarks on this subject, con- 

 tained in a work "On Domestic Fowls, &c.," by 

 M. De Reaumur, the inventor of the French ther- 

 mometer. In this abstract I shall use the lan- 

 guage of the author, as translated, but shall con- 

 siderably abridge the sum cf his remarks. 



The multiplication of chickens does not appear, 

 says M. De Reaumur, to be a more important ob- 

 ject than the preservation of eggs, since it is prob- 

 able that hens contribute more to the actual sup- 

 ply of man's food by the latter, than the former. 

 It is very easy to surmise that if all the eggs con- 

 sumed in one year were put into the scale of a 

 balance and weighed, and all the chickens, fowls 

 and capons eaten in the same year were weighed 

 likewise, the weight of the eggs would be superior 

 to that of the flesh of the poultry. He thinks, in 

 any case, however, that the preservation of eggs is 

 a subject of great importance. 



There is a method, he continues, for having 

 eggs preserved a great while without corruption, 

 which ought to obtain public attention. It is very 

 remarkable that there should be, among eggs. laid 

 by the same hens, some that remain sound and 

 contract no ill taste whatever, though laid a great 

 while before, and kept in a warm, dry air five or 

 six times longer than what would be necessary to 

 rot any other eggs, placed in the same circum- 

 stances. This is an observation which he had oc- 



casion to make a great many times, before he tried 

 methods for causing chickens to be hatched in 

 ovens. After eggs had been warmed for some 

 days together in the hatching ovens, there were 

 some that spread the most offensive smell in the 

 place if they were broken, and were entirely rot- 

 ten. There were others in the same place, which, 

 when broken, not only had no ill smell, but which 

 w^ere very good to eat. They differed from new- 

 laid eggs only in having some of their moisture 

 evaporated, but the yolk was an entire ball, like 

 that of fresh eggs. 



In some of the eggs that were corrupt enough to 

 spread the most oflensive smell, he found a chicken 

 very well formed ; in some of the same eggs he 

 found only the remains of one, and in others he 

 could not perceive the least vestiges of any. In 

 this last case the germ had probaljly perished at 

 an early date, and had become dissolved ; but the 

 uncorrupt eggs never contained a germ. The 

 germ, at least a productive germ, is wanting in the 

 eggs of hens that live without a cock ; and those 

 of hens that are not deprived of cocks are not all 

 fruitful. Now, since the eggs that have germs in 

 them are liable to corruption, he was led to think 

 that those which keep sound a longer time, are the 

 unfruitful ones. The experiments necessary to re- 

 move all doubt on this point were too plain not 

 to be attempted. 



He accordingly kept four hens without a cock 

 in a large cage, where they had every thing be- 

 sides in plenty ; they laid eggs there, the first of 

 which were of course productive ; but after these 

 had all been laid, by experimenting upon those 

 which were laid afterwards, he found that when 

 placed in the hatching oven, no chicken was en- 

 folded in them, and they did not contract any cor- 

 ruption. Although they loere in an air warm to the 

 degree that causes chickens to be hatched, they re- 

 mained sound there for above thirty days, and 

 sometimes forty or fifty days together. 



Thirty or forty days in an air of the heat of a 

 hen's body must be equivalent in its action upon 

 the eggs, to a great many months of an air which 

 has only the common temperature of our houses. 

 He concluded, therefore, that eggs destitute of a 

 germ might be kept a long time in an ordinary 

 temperature without being spoiled. He then 

 made further experiments of another character. 

 He deposited some of these eggs laid by hens kept 

 apart from cocks, in one of the coolest places in 

 his house on the ground floor, after having written 

 upon each of them the date when it was laid. On 

 the third day of January, he tried those which had 

 been deposited there on the first of May, the pre- 

 ceding year ; and found them in good condition. 

 A great cavity had been made within them by 

 evaporation. They were not in the least corrupt, 

 though the yolk was slightly adhering to the shell. 

 He had these eggs dressed in different ways, and 

 none of those who eat them, had the least suspi- 

 cion that they were eight months old. 



In order, then, to have eggs that would keep 

 fresh from spring to the middle, or even the end 

 of winter, we need only to deprive hens of all com- 

 munication with cocks. People, without knowing 

 this, must have owed to this circumstance the oc- 

 casional advantage of finding a smaller number of 

 spoiled eggs among those they bought. Hens 

 are not furnished in every farm with as many and 

 as good cocks as would be necessary to render all 



