11 profit from poultry starts from the 
egg. hence the production of eggs is 
the very foundation of a profitable 
poultry business. Whether a 
man markets the eggs himself or produces 
eggs for the general market, or whether he 
turns the eggs into chickens and market' the 
chickens, it is obvious that eggs are the founda¬ 
tion of all the profit he derives from his poultry 
work. 
In this book it is our purpose to tell some of 
the methods of profitable poultry work, the 
special purpose being the eggs-for-market side 
of the business; and the various phases of breed¬ 
ing for eggs, feeding for eggs, the best methods 
to employ for the best profit from egg pro¬ 
duction. the care, handling and marketing of 
the product, etc., will be considered. It is ob¬ 
vious at the outset, however, that in such a 
book as this we cannot go into the discussion of 
all phases of this important question, nor need 
we concern ourselves with such lesser questions 
as eggs in literature, eggs in mythology, or 
superstitions about’ eggs. etc., etc., however 
interesting they may be. 
The great bulk of the eggs produced are 
either utilized in the hatching of chickens or 
consumed as human food and in the very 
numerous ways of preparing human food, and 
we write this with full recognition of the great 
quantities of eggs that are consumed in man¬ 
ufactures.the arts. etc.; great as is the use of eggs 
for many other purposes probably more than 
nine-tenths of all eggs produced the world 
over are consumed as human food. 
The Uses of Eggs. 
Eggs form an economical and nourishing food 
and are a staple article of diet with nearly even' 
family in the land. The housewife could almost 
as well do without her kitchen range and cook¬ 
ing utensils as do without eggs. There is no 
other branch of the poultry business which holds 
out such promise or assures so good a profit in 
return for a little common sense work as the 
production of fresh eggs. There are few places 
where eggs cannot be profitably produced: if 
not sold to the local market the}' can be readily 
shipped to the large markets, even at a consider¬ 
able distance from the point of production; 
there is no other farm product that can be so 
easily packed and shipped to market. The 
chief requisite in building up a trade in fresh 
eggs is to establish a reputation for handling 
only the best: the consumers will do the rest. 
In some markets brown eggs are preferred above 
the white one>. while in others the white ones 
are the more salable. But in nearly all markets 
it will be found best to grade the eggs, packing 
only those of one color and quality in a case, as 
better prices are often obtained by so doing. 
When eggs are received by the wholesaler they 
are inspected and candled before being sent out 
to consumers. This testing or candling is done 
by passing the egg before a strong electric light, 
which is placed behind an egg testing device in 
which are two holes before which the operator 
rapidly passes the eggs, determining their quali¬ 
ty and relative freshness by their appearance 
as they are passed before the light. Only per¬ 
fect eggs are sold. Those which have been 
cracked or which have very dirty shells are 
canned and frozen. Such canned eggs are sold 
to the large baking establishments at a price 
considerably lower than that paid for fresh eggs. 
Some of these frozen eggs are also sold to the 
tenement house family trade. It has been 
found that these frozen eggs cannot be success¬ 
fully used in making custards unless they are 
previously passed through a fine sieve. 
Even the spoiled and rotten eggs find a 
market. Millions of tainted eggs are used each 
5 
