STUDYING EGGS 245 



very probable) losses, he must be reimbursed for these, 

 and must also have a fair margin of profit. This he 

 takes as long as he stays in business, and the day that 

 he is compelled to go out of business is usually a poor 

 day for the average producer. But in the matter of 

 eggs, probably the largest item of difference between 

 what he pays the producer and what he receives comes 

 from his doing that which the producer either will not 

 bother with, or else which he finds impracticable, be- 

 cause his product is small in volume. There is a way in 

 which he might do his grading, simply, easily, effectively, 

 which I will speak of later. Since he does not as yet 

 ordinarily follow this method, we will look at the eggs 

 as they actually do vary when offered to the market of 

 to-day. 



Market eggs do vary much in shape, in size, in color, 

 in texture, and surface of shell. The critical eye detects 

 most quickly, in my opinion, a variation in size. This is 

 a very offensive variation to the buyer critic. A lot of 

 eggs would much better be all of fair to good size, than 

 to contain a few overlarge specimens, which will make 

 all the rest look unduly small. Next in importance to 

 variations in size may be placed variations in shape. I 

 place these before variations in color (knowing that 

 some will differ with me), because some shapes are so 

 very far from normal as to be notably in themiselves un- 

 attractive (and useless), while an egg may be almost any 

 tint in the wide range from chalk-white to " seal brown " 

 without being unattractive, except to the prejudiced 

 buyer. Markets and poultry writers do sometimes suc- 

 ceed in prejudicing buyers against certain colors, but 

 ordinarily the markets have to take all the eggs offered 



