HOW EGGS ARE MARKETED 
allowing eggs to stand for a week or two in a dry room. Cold 
storage eggs, when in case lots, can be told by the candler 
because of the uniform shrinkage, the presence of mold on 
cracked eggs and perhaps the occasional presence of certain 
kinds of spot rots peculiar to storage stock, but the-absolute 
detection of a single cold storage egg, so far as the writer 
knows, is impossible. 
It may be further said that with the present prevailing cus- 
tom of holding eggs without storage facilities for the fall 
rise of price, eggs placed in cold storage in April are fre- 
quently superior to the current fall and early winter receipts. 
Cold storage eggs are generally sold wholesale as cold storage 
goods, but are retailed as “eggs.” The fall eggs offered to 
the consumer cover every imaginable variation in quality and 
the poorest ones sold may be a cold storage product, or they 
may not be. 
The Bureau of Chemistry of the United States Department 
of Agriculture has recently announced the finding of certain 
crystals in the yolks of cold storage eggs that are not present 
in the fresh stock. This finding of a laboratory method of 
detecting cold storage stock was at first taken to be a great 
discovery. Further investigation, however, indicates that the 
crystal mentioned forms as the egg ages and that the rate of 
formation varies with the individual eggs and probably also 
with the temperature, so that while crystals may indicate an 
aged egg, the discovery only means that the microscopist in 
the laboratory can now do in a half hour what any egg candler 
in his booth can do in ten seconds. 
At the present writing (February, 1909) there has been 
much talk of laws against the sale of cold storage eggs as 
fresh. The Federal Pure Food Commission, under the general 
law against misbranding, have made one such prosecution. 
Many States have agitated such laws but little or nothing has 
been done. I find that the idea of such a law is quite popular, 
especially with poultrymen. Contrary to popular opinion, the 
cold storage men and larger egg dealers are not opposed to 
the law. The people that are hit are the small dealers and 
especially the city grocers. These fellows buy the eggs at 
wholesale storage prices and sell them at retail prices for 
fresh, thus making excessive profits but cutting down the 
amount of the sales. This lessens the demand for storage 
stock and lowers the wholesale price. This is the reason the 
wholesaler and warehouse man are in favor of the law. 
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