PREPARATION OF FROZEN AND DRIED EGGS. 25 
There were a sufficient number of knives and sherbet cups to permit each soiled 
- piece to be sterilized for fifteen minutes before being again put into service. The 
apparatus was considered soiled as soon as it had come into contact with an egg 
that had to be discarded. Current breaking stock furnished the eggs. The results of 
the laboratory examination of the experimentally prepared product are shown in 
Part II of Table 13. In order to comprehend their true significance, the bacterial 
findings obtained must be compared with those found in commercial sample No. 455. 
The eggs used in these two series were not only from the same lot but from the same 
cases, the experimental samples coming from one side and the commercial samples 
being taken from the other, in the routine fashion of the house. Their similarity is 
further confirmed by the chemical analyses, which are practically identical. The 
number of bacteria in the experimental samples are uniformly less than 1,000 per 
gram, and the organisms of the coli group are greatly reduced in number, not exceeding 
100 per gram, while the corresponding figures for the commercial sample are 4,300,000 
bacteria and 100,000 B. colt. 
Part III of Table 13 gives the results obtained when the equipment was washed 
and held in hot water at 160° F. before use. When contaminated by a bad egg it was 
not used again untilit had been washed and sterilized. The finger tips were kept dry 
as before. The number of bacteria per gram is, practically speaking, reduced to a 
negligible quantity, and the presumptive colz organisms are also practically excluded. 
To emphasize what such cleanliness means the counts should be compared with the 
commercial samples Nos. 459-461. Here again the bacteria per gram ran over 4,000,000 
in the case of the yolks, and the B. coli ran as high as 100,000. These eggs, as before, 
were from the opposite half of the cases furnishing the experimental samples. Such 
a demonstration, confirmed by many others, showed that the best of eggs, if handled 
in dirty utensils, would give a product containing many bacteria. 
CONDITIONS OBSERVED IN C HOUSE IN 1911. 
The equipment used in C house in the preparation of the egg for freezing was also 
of interest, because it varied in character for almost every breaker. The fancies of 
the individual girls were more apt to determine the kind of utensils used than any 
peperianeert judgment concerning fitness for the work to be done. Sometimes 20 
girls were employed, but there was no discipline. The forewoman was the social 
associate of the girls, and many were the interruptions while town doings were dis- 
cussed. The whole atmosphere of the breaking room was one of easy-going self 
satisfaction. 
THe BREAKING Room AnD EQUIPMENT. 
The ege-breaking room was long and narrow. Two windows on the outer side wall 
were screened, as was also the door. The floor was of wood for rather more than half 
its length, the balance being of concrete and slightly lower in level. 
A long table made of wood and covered with zinc stretched from end to end of the 
room. At this table, facing the light, the girls sat. About 18 inches above the table 
and running along the wall and across the windows was a galvanized-iron gutter about 
5 inches in diameter and about 2 inchesdeep. Over this were water faucets so placed 
that they could be reached without the girls leaving their seats, and in this stream of 
cold water the girls rinsed fingers and utensils. About half way down the room, 
breaking the table line, was a wooden trough supplied with hot and cold water and 
used for the general cleaning and washing. 
At the two ends of the room were large galvanized-iron cans, supplied with stirrers 
and creamery faucets and called churns. In these the eggs were mixed before being 
put into their final carriers. 
The girls were using heavy walled glass tumblers, tin cups, agateware cups, sherbet 
glasses, and ordinary china teacups, depending entirely upon the preference of the 
worker and the receptacle available. Each girl had a small tray—tin, agate, or 
black japanned ware—on which she placed the egg receptacles. She also had a 
pup of agateware buckets, holding about 3 quarts each, into which she emptied 
er smaller receivers. These buckets were dumped into the churns, or, in the case 
of egg white, directly into 30-pound pails, in which they were frozen. When the 
study of C house was made it was putting out egg white, egg yolk (sugared and un- 
sugared), and a first, second, and third grade of whole egg. The third grade was known 
as ‘‘tanners’,’’ and was not for food purposes. 
