360 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 May, 1902. 
last spring and summer. These eggs proved as sound and good as when I 
stored them nearly six months back ; and, indeed, many of them, when the top 
was removed, retained within that “milky” matter, so characteristic of an egg 
taken straight from the nest. } 
All foreign and imported eggs are of necessity more or less stale and of 
uncertain age, haying been laid weeks, and sometimes months, before they 
reach our markets. But the foreigner is more alive to his own interests 
than we are, and already they are beginning to practise the wet storing in 
water glass, and, unless we mend our ways, the day is not far distant when 
the stale, dry-stored egg will become the speciality of the British farmer and 
shopkeeper. It took twenty years before our farmers could be induced to 
adopt, even here and there, the Dutch factory system, to secure a good 
butter of uniform quality; how many years will it take us before we shall 
trouble ourselves to preserve the freshness of our eggs? As water glass is 
now an article of commerce, and quite cheap, let us hope that a jar of it may 
soon become a fixture in the larder or storeroom of all householders in town 
and country who can appreciate a fresh ege in preference to a more or less stale 
or bad one.—Agricultural Gazette, London. 
PRESERVING EGGS. 
Lime or Water Guass. 
The Scottish Harmer writes:—There has been some talk lately of the 
superiority of water-glass (silicate of soda) to lime for the preservation of eggs. 
It is contended that eggs preserved in a solution of water-glass will keep longer 
fresh than in lime-water, and will acquire no taste; that, indeed, at the end of 
six months, the whites, when boiled, will have the milky a pearance of a new- 
laid egg. Professor Long repeatedly recommends this method ; and it is being 
largely adopted in America for market purposes. The proper solution is 10 per 
cent. of water-glass in perfectly pure water. The purity of the water is an 
important point. At Birmingham Show last December, out of twenty-four 
exhibits of preserved eggs (delivered four months previously), two were in 
water-glass, and neither got a prize. The first prize went to lime-water, and the 
second to eggs which were rubbed with vaseline, each egg wrapped in a cloth 
and packed in bran. If the contention in favour of water-glass be correct, there 
was some mischance befel those sent to Birmingham Show. 
[We (Q.4.J.) have repeatedly stated from practical experience that the 
lime-water preservative is far and away the best, and we do not agree with the 
contention that the lime imparts a bad flavour to the eggs. After nine months, 
the eggs we preserved in lime-water were as good as when they were first laid.] 
POULTRY NOTES. 
Scaly leg is contagious, and will spread through a flock. ‘For this reason it 
is advisable to keep a watch over the young birds as well as the old ones, and 
at the first indication of a roughness on the shanks to anoint them with sweet 
oil and kerosene, half and half. 
Tt may be set down as a fact that the average hen will lay more eggs in the 
course of a year, if allowed to hatch at least one brood of chickens. The restis 
needed, and will bring her out in better condition for renewed egg-laying. 
Nature points out the thing needed, and it better be heeded. 
If you intend to breed pure-bred poultry get the best, for it costs no more 
to feed, keep, and house choice stock than it does the common mongrels, and. 
