Eggs

Into the lives of chickens there come periods of great activity and many eggs. Farmers wait for this period anxiously because it means more eggs to market during early spring when prices are still firm. Egg speculators wait for it because it means the winter period of high prices and small sales is over. Last week farmers with many eggs to sell at high prices were disappointed; egg speculators who had sold short were pleased. After an unexpected duration of high prices, the Manhattan egg market broke 6-c- to 41-c- for extra fresh eggs in a sudden noon raid, and in St. Louis 4-c- was slashed off prices.

U. S. hens annually cackle over 31 billion eggs. Most of the cackling takes place in the upper Mississippi Valley. Six billion eggs are used on the 5,000,000 farms that produce them, the rest go forth to the egg markets. About 80% of these eggs are just by-products of general farming as contrasted to poultry farming. The poultry and egg industry is sixth in the agricultural list, with the value of poultry sold coming to $561,000,000 and eggs to $527,000,000. Certain markets have peculiarities: Manhattan wants white eggs, Boston, brown.

A most important phase of the U. S. egg market is the, use of fresh, or shell eggs, for freezing (breaking them and placing them in 30-lb. containers in which they are frozen and then kept at from zero to 5DEG Cent.). Annually 6,000,000 cases (30 doz. in a case) are "broken out" for this purpose, used extensively by wholesale bakers. Recently frozen eggs have been used to some extent by manufacturers of macaroni, mayonnaise, ice cream and candy, who previously used only dried eggs imported exclusively from China. China, the only competitor of U. S. egg farmers, supplied about 40% of U. S. consumption of frozen and dried eggs despite the tariff which was raised last year from 6 to 7-c- per pound. Imports of shell eggs are about one-tenth of 1% and consist mostly of preserved duck eggs for Chinamen.

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