An egg being eighty per cent. water, consider the effect on eggs produced by the farmers’ flocks, where the water supply is mainly pools in the barn yard, which receive the drainage from the manure piles, and where the principal food supply is scratched out of manure heaps, consisting of undigested grain that has already passed through another animal.
A hen must have a large proportion of animal food to lay well, and to produce rich, nutritious eggs.
Diseased Meat to Eat
Consider what in many instances this animal food consists of, carcasses of glandered horses, tuberculous cows, and putrid and maggoty meat. If a dish of putrid beef were placed on the table before people they would shrink back in horror, yet they will eat eggs which have been produced by hens which have been fed on these identical ingredients, apparently entirely oblivious of the fact that the hen performs no miracle in the production of an egg, but simply manufactures the egg from the materials, whatever they may be, which she gathers into her system.
As the Food, so the Egg
The Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, says that while such conditions undoubtedly do exist it cannot be proven that such eggs are shipped from State to State, and that, therefore, it does not come under the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and cannot be controlled under the National Pure Food Law.
What is needed, then, is to know that eggs are not only fresh, but sanitary. The Corning Egg Farm layers are fed the best quality of grains and meals that can be procured. The animal food is supplied by fresh, green bone, cut and prepared daily. This bone comes from inspected cattle only, and the Farm is equipped with a large freezing plant for the purpose of carrying the bone in a perfectly fresh condition. The hens are housed and cared for under absolutely sanitary conditions.
A Perfect Egg a Rarity
The growing interest in Poultry Culture is bringing the Public to a realization of the fallacy of the old idea that “any egg not rotten must be a good egg.” Comparatively few people have ever eaten a perfect egg. With the growth of real egg farms through the country, the time is approaching when the words “fresh” or “strictly fresh” will no longer mean anything to the purchaser, and the word “sanitary” will take their place, and in some way the egg trade will be controlled, and the grocer, and butcher, and peddlers of eggs, will not be allowed to put cold storage eggs out as a sanitary article of food.
Some of the New York papers are now beginning to agitate the question of Sanitary Eggs, notably the New York Commercial, which is a leader in this educational line. The day is coming when the person who is operating an egg farm that is known to produce the egg of real quality will have no difficulty in obtaining the price that such an article is really worth.