160 COMMON SENSE 
At first these orders seemed a small business, and we were com- 
pelled to sell our surplus eggs at the stores, but we had faith that 
our ‘customers would increase rapidly, and we were not disap- 
pointed. ‘Yhe novel mode of putting them up, the large size 
and excellent flavor of the eggs, and the fact that every egg was 
guaranteed, all combined to increase our business, especially as the 
prices were not higher than those asked by the best grocers. Eggs 
could be had much more cheaply than from me, but not Sresh 
eggs from respectable houses. ‘T he loose circulars were distrib- 
uted freely as a novelty ; postal cards began to come in, and visi- 
tors soon began to make their appearance at our yards to examine 
the poultry of which they had heard so much. My twenty crates 
were nowhere, and I at once gave an order for 250. Before I re- 
ceived them I had orders for over three hundred dozen eggs, for 
which I had no crates. I therefore bought a lot of cheap but’ 
pretty little baskets, and here again the gelatin pad came to my 
rescue. I wrote a short explanation and apology for not sending 
a crate, and tied it to the handle of each basket. 
I made it a rule never to expose guaranteed eggs. in the stores. 
I sold eggs to the storekeepers, but unstamped ‘or with the stamp 
washed off. For this reason I used a greyish kind of ink for stamp- 
ing the eggs, and it was so prepared that asponge and a little 
warm water obliterated the stamp completely. I never could quite 
remove the séain, and these stained eggs soon became known to 
buyers and were preferred—partly because they were larger and 
partly because they came frorn the now famous ‘Ferniebield yards. 
And although an “egg is an egg,” and large eggs and small ones 
sell for the same price, yet I found that most housekeepers had a 
decided preference for large eggs, and that small ones would re-. 
main unsold long after the large ones had been bought up. 
I sold eggs for hatching purposes too, and as it was known that 
I had very superior fowls, I had a good many orders. But this 
subject placed me in rather a difficult position. Everybody 
thought that the eggs from my laying hens would produce pullets as 
good as the mothers, and when I advised them. not to buy these 
eggs, they thought that my reason for so advising was that I did 
