I've had several queries for a definition or so. Growing up on the farm, I didn't question the egg candler but here is a good definition. Candling and grading The cleaned eggs are graded in a candling booth which is a dark cubical or room. A penetrating light is shined on the eggs in order to grade them. The egg processor is able to grade the egg during candling. The trained candler can see that an older egg has thinner albumen; thus, the yolk casts a sharp shadow and immediately indicates an older egg. Eggs are graded as "A" (sold for household use or at retail markets), grade "B" (used mostly for bakery operations), or grade "C" (sent to egg breakers who break the shell in order to convert it to other egg products); higher grade eggs have a thick, upstanding albumen, an oval yolk, and a clean, smooth, unbroken shell. Eggs with cracks that are not leaking are removed from the process at this point and are not packaged for household use or retail sale. Also, when I was growing up, the candler could also tell if the egg was fertilized and it was not used. Now - feather renovators. Back to the farm first. Father kills the chicken/turkey/goose/duck by wringing the neck off or cutting it off with an axe. Mother (or children) take over and defeather the poor bird. Pin feathers are singed off, Mother takes the chicken, washes it and fries it. What about the feathers? Well, in days past, feathers were collected by feather salesmen or mercantile owners and sold at a good profit, most in this area went to Louisville. Now it takes a lot of feathers to make a pound and those feathers had to be cleaned. Enter the feather renovator. He washed the feathers, likely sorted them into size or quality or from what kind of fowl and packed them up. Off they went to Louisville by wagon to the buyer. The buyer then used them to sell to pillow makers, hat makers who used the fancy feathers for the top of mylady's hats ... and mattresses. Hope that hellps! Sandi Sandi's Puzzlers: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gensoup/gorin/puz.html SCKY Links: http://www.public.asu.edu/~moore/Gorin.html GGP: http://ggpublishing.tripod.com/