LOSSES ON THE FARM 421 



Farm Losses. — It is not uncommon for farm eggs to remain 

 under a wheat shock or in some out-of-the-way corner for two or 

 three days, maybe a week, before they are found, or before it is 

 convenient to collect them, during which time probably they 

 have been subjected to summer heat of perhaps 95 degrees. 

 See Fig. 272. Frequently the eggs are stored in the kitchen or 

 back porch, or in a closet in one of the outbuildings, where the 

 thermometer hovers around 85 degrees at midday. Often the 

 eggs are hauled to the village store or shipping point in an open 

 wagon, maybe a wagon without springs, exposed to the direct 

 rays of the sun and a temperature of 105 degrees, and then left on 

 a truck at the rail^Vay station for several hours. 



General Store. — If the eggs are delivered at the village store 

 for credit, it is quite likely that the storekeeper, receiving the 

 eggs over the counter, will let them remain in the store until the 

 close of the day, and then carry them down to the cellar, where 

 they will remain for perhaps a week, until a large enough quantity 

 is gathered to ship to a local buyer or egg-collecting center. 

 What if the cellar is warm or damp or musty or poorly ventilated, 

 the storekeeper has no particular interest in the eggs, any more 

 than as a means of keeping the farmer's trade in merchandise. 



Local Buyer. — ^When the local buyer or egg-collecting depot 

 receives the eggs, probably it is by way-freight, the eggs are 

 again held for several days or a week until there is enough to 

 make up a carlot, whereupon they are dispatched to a city jobber 

 or to a packer. This last lap of the journey may be made in a 

 refrigerator car, or it may not. In either event there is enough 

 iniquity already stored up inside the eggs or their cases to account 

 for a large portion of our fifty million dollar loss. 



This system of marketing is not incidental. It is general. It 

 is in vogue all over the country. Its evils are perfectly obvious. 

 Exchanging eggs for merchandise or credit at the general store, 

 as at present practised, is pernicious. It is the weakest spot in 

 the egg trade. 



A graphic idea of the loss due to heated stock can be obtained 

 from the fact that in the South and Southwest the egg industry 



