BANKIN'S aiJCE BOOK 



season. Another magjJsepbriUrty heri-s sitting three weeks 

 with; an average ol one. -fertile egg to each bird, -when three 

 of them could have done all 'the ■ hatching just as well, and 

 "then, at' the end of four days,- could ha-Ve had' the rest put 

 upon better eggs."' ,! - '-'. '" """ "''_, ■' 



A .great waste of. hen power, you will ,.say, : with time 16s t, 

 together with forty. dozen eggs, which would have been just 

 as good for table use had they b'een tested out in, four days. 

 ; It is ithe general impression _ among all egg deaiers as well as 

 consumers that eggs haying-been in an incubator for. any 

 length 'of time are worthless for culinary purposes, as the one 

 ■will not handle them or the other consume them if he-knows 

 it. The real act of the matter is that the infertile duck egg 

 that has been in a machine three days is a better egg than a 

 -fresh one that is fertile, for the simple reason that the one 

 will keep good indefinitely while the other will begin to incu- 

 bate in a temperature of 85 to 90 degrees. 



I was passing through Boston market one day in June 

 when a dealer called me into his stall and said: ''I want to 

 show you something." He pointed to a lot of duck eggs, 

 saying: "Those eggs were received here two days ago and 

 a great many of them are already discolored and worthless." 

 I told him that the farmers were not to blame, that he should 

 have kept them in a cool place as a duck egg began to in- 

 cubate in a temperature of 85 to 90 degrees. "But Mr. Ran- 

 kin," said he, "I have had thousands of duck eggs of you for 

 years and I never found a poor one in the lot." I was in a 

 dilemma. I could not tell him that every one of those eggs 

 had been through the incubator and passed my own eye; he 

 might have taken my word for it that incubator eggs were 

 the best eggs but it would be a different thing to convince 

 the public and would sooner or later get out and ruin his 

 custom. 



If you wish to keep you-r eggs, simply remove the male 

 bird and the eggs will keep indefinitely. Put them in a cool, 

 moist place where they wil 1 not evaporate and you will find 

 them at the end of six months as fresh to the taste and to all 

 appearances as when first laid. I have often tested an infer- 

 tile egg by allowing it to remain in the incubator through 

 three successive hatches (twelve weeks) at a temperature of 

 103 degrees and then found the contents completely evapor- 

 ated and hardened, the shell one third full on breaking and 

 the substance that remained just as sweet as when first placed 

 in the machine, — a sufficient proof that you need no chem- 

 icals or lotions of any kind to preserve it as the germ of fer- 



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