LIBRARY OF CONGRESS^ 
 
 Shelf ...B^.. 
 
 j CNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
I 
 
I ARTIFICIAL 
 
 Poultry-raising 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, MASS.: 
 
 THE PHELPS PUBLISHING CO. 
 1886. 
 
 x: 
 
Something to Make Your Hens Lay. 
 
 ANIMAL MEAL 
 
 FOR FOWLS AND PIGS. 
 
 Made from Fresh Meat, Fresh Bones, dried and ground to a sweet meal, to 
 which is added Parched and Carbonized Grain, making a sweet, stimu- 
 lating, and highly nutritious food which Fowls and Pigs eat greedily. 
 
 There is a universal want among farmers and poultry-men for somethingr to 
 make hens lay during the winter months; for the profits of keeping poultrs main- 
 ly depend upon a liberal egg production throughout the season. Experienced 
 persons are aware that there is nothing better for this purpose than meat, yet few 
 are so situated that they can procure from home resources all that it would be 
 profitable to feed, and there is a general want of something in a cheap and con- 
 venient form to answer this purpose. To supply this want we have prepared 
 the Animal Meal, an article which has been ex' ensively used by practical men for 
 several years, and given excellent satisfaction. It is made from fresh, lean meat, 
 and bones cooked and dried by steam to dry. sweet meal. 
 
 UCMO i AV When fed with this Animal Meal very soon after feedingit to them. 
 riLllu LHl As an egg-producing food it is the best thing that has ever been 
 prepared, possessing as it does all the stimulating quahties of fresh meat, to 
 which are added the stimulating qualities of parched and carbonized grains, 
 which are known to be especially good to make hens lay, and also a portion of 
 bone which furnishes lime and phosphate for the shell ju abundance and in pre- 
 cisely the right form. 
 
 DDnimnTCC UCAITU The Anlmalmeal win be found excellent for fowls in 
 rnUiYIUIllO nCHLin< confineu ent, and, if properly cared for in other re- 
 spects, fowls fed upon this meal will do as well in small yards as those which 
 have a wider range. It prevents feather-eating, and often cures fowls addicted to 
 this habit. Fowls properly fed upon this Meal will lay no soft-shelled eggs, and 
 they will also moult easily. 
 
 PRICES: Trial Bags of 15 lbs. 50c 100 lb. Bag, 1?!2.50 
 
 "30 '• gl.OO 1 bbl. 200 lbs., 5.00 
 
 Ground Oyster Shells for Fowls. 
 
 This is made from oyster shells, thoroughly washed, dried and made sweet, then 
 reduced to the size that passes easily through a screen of one-half inch mesh. 
 It is liked very much to feed to poultry to supply lime, and as a substitute for 
 bone, being cheaper. It is now verv extensively used, and no person keeping 
 fowls should be without it. 251b. bag, 30 cents. 50 lb. bag, 60 cents. 100 lb. bag, 
 75 cents. 
 
 Bowker's Bone Meal for Cattle. 
 
 This is made from carefully selected bone, reduced to a meal, white, clean, and 
 perfectly sweet. Manv farmers claim that the feeding of bone meal will prevent 
 abortion in cows. This is no doubt true ; and it should be more generally fed to 
 cattle, especially cows with calf, which take to gna.wing boards, the ground, or old 
 bones and boots. It will also furnish the phosphate of lime, especially needed 
 in growing stock to build up the bone structure ; also to supply the phosphate of 
 lime removed from the svstem in the milk. It is estimated that a dairy cow re- 
 quires during a vear at least 50 lbs. of phosphate of lime, in which case the feed- 
 ing of bone meal must be verv beneficial, particularly when craved on the part of 
 the animal. It is also claimed that it will prevent and cure "Cripp e-Ail," which 
 is the weakening of the joints and bones, and no doubt the result of not feeding 
 sufficient bone-forming food, like bone meal. Feed from a table spoonful to one- 
 half pint at a time, as long as the animal seems to crave it. Most cows and grow- 
 ing stock will lick it down as they do salt. With some, however, it will be neces- 
 sary to feed it with grain. 10 lb. bag, 50 cents. 25 lb. bag, gl.OO. 100 lb. bag, ^3.00. 
 
 BOWKER FERTILIZER CO., 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
 
%mmcRn l^gricitltttn. 
 
 SIKTEEN YEARS' EXPEfilENCE 
 
 -IN- 
 
 JAMES RANKIN, 
 
 SOUTH EASTON, MA88. , 
 
 N- 
 
 DEC 30 1885 ' 
 
 EDITED BY ^^^^^Vil^H^^^Z 
 
 HERBERT MYRICK, 
 
 Agricultural Editor of The Neav England Homestead (weekly), 
 and Farm and Home (monthly). 
 
 [Copyright, isa-i, by the Phelps Publishing Company.] 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, MASS. : 
 
 the PHELPS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 \ -^ 
 
 ■\ 
 
S f4^ 6- 
 
 '-R'i 
 
PART FIRST. 
 
 SIXTEEN YEARS' EXPERIENCE 
 
 AR TIFIGIAL POULTR Y- RAISING. 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES RANKIN. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Artificial incubation is not, as many suppose, of recent origin, 
 but was in successful operation thousands of years ago in Egypt. 
 The celebrated egg-ovens of that country are a matter of history, 
 but the secrets of their success have never been fully divulged. 
 A close investigation of the subject shows that the management 
 of these ovens was confined to a certain class and its secrets care- 
 fully transmitted from father to son. The eggs were brought 
 to the ovens by the country people, who at the end of the three 
 weeks returned, paid their fees and took their chicks — some fifty 
 to seventy per cent, according to the fertility of their eggs. The 
 real truth of the matter is, that the men, by long practice, had 
 become so expert in the business that in a climate where the av- 
 erage temperature was but a few degrees below that required 
 for incubating the egg, it was a comparatively easy matter to 
 keep an even heat, simply using the body as a thermometer. 
 
 This, in our climate of ice and snow, would be quite a differ- 
 ent thing and next to impossible. Besides, the enterprising 
 Yankee of the present day has got the impression that his time 
 is of more value than that of a sitting hen, and has invented ma- 
 
4: INTRODUCTION. 
 
 chines that not only regulate their own heat automatically, and 
 generate their own humidity of atmosphere, and with a very little 
 attention on his part, hatch his chicks for him without in anyway 
 interfering with his regular business. 
 
 Incubators have been in use in this country for more than 
 thirty years, and in England, France and Germany for nearly a 
 century, but with so little success that the business has not been 
 considered practical even by the most sanguine. In years past 
 thousands of these machines have been thrust upon a credulous 
 public, whose only use seemed to be to disappoint their purchaser 
 and addle his eggs, and if possible increase the antipathy which 
 already exists in the public mind against incubators. Within a 
 few years, great improvements have been made in the construc- 
 tion and regulation of these machines ; so much so, that there are 
 some now upon the market that in the hands of the average man 
 or woman, not only do better work, but are more reliable than 
 the best hens. There are many others which though successful 
 in the hands of their inventors themselves are of no use to the 
 general public. 
 
 For the past thirty years I have been engaged in growing 
 thousands of chicks and ducks yearly; the first fourteen years 
 of that time hatching and growing them in the natural way, but 
 for the last sixteen years have been using incubators of different 
 patterns. The result of this experience is, that I consider hens 
 essential to furnish eggs, but a nuisance for hatching and grow- 
 ing chicks. I propose in the following pages to give the readers 
 my actual experience with incubators during the past sixteen 
 years. I am aware that in so doing I shall advocate many points 
 which the manufacturers of other incubators flatly contradict in 
 their instructions, but I shall advance nothing but sound theory, 
 confirmed by actual experiment, and when the reader has 
 acquainted himself with my miserable failures and the suc- 
 cess I have achieved through these experiments, he will be in a 
 condition to draw his own conclusions. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 3fY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH INCUBATORS. 
 
 THE OLD WAY— SETTING HENS— TENDING THE MACHINE— DIS- 
 ASTROUS RESULTS. 
 
 In the year 1868 quite an excitement was created in poultry- 
 circles in the vicinity of Boston by the introduction of an incu- 
 bator. The manufacturer claimed that it not only hatched as 
 well or better than hens, but that it regulated its own heat, re- 
 quired little or no care and attention and could be easily operated 
 without in anyway interfering with one's regular business. 
 
 Now this was just what I had been looking for. I had been 
 engaged in growing poultry from boyhood and at the time spoken 
 of had gotten the fever badly. For some ten years previous I 
 had been in the habit of getting out from twelve to fifteen hun- 
 dred chicks and ducks during the spring months of each year by 
 the old hen process, and it ^ad not always proved satisfactory. 
 For though I could always find a ready market for early spring 
 chicks at from sixty to seventy-five cents per pound at the club 
 houses and first-class hotels in Boston, I could not always induce 
 biddy to commence business in time to furnish them. She was 
 carefully fed, fancy nests were fixed up in the nooks and corners 
 and filled with porcelain eggs; in fact every facility was afforded 
 her as an inducement to begin, but with only partial success. 
 
 Then again, during the months of May and June, when we 
 wished to retire from business, the nests were invariably filled 
 with persistent sitters. There was a constant battle with water- 
 barrels, red rags, solitary confinement on the one side and per- 
 sistent obstinacy on the other. I did not then know that the 
 introduction of a vigorous young cock among a yard of sitters, 
 with plenty of food and exercise, was far more effective in in- 
 
ducing a change of mind than more vigorous treatment, cold bath 
 and signals included. 
 
 This machine was going to relieve me from all further trou- 
 ble, and hatch out the chicks just when they were the most val- 
 uable. I visited Boston and saw the machines in operation. 
 The eggs were taken out and broken at different stages of de- 
 velopment. Everything appeared to be satisfactory, a five- 
 hundred egg machine was purchased, taken home and set up and 
 in due time filled with eggs, precaution being taken to set fifteen 
 or twenty hens at the same time. These hens were intended to 
 accommodate the machine chicks in addition to their own. The 
 machine was a very expensive one, and I soon found, it had at 
 least two good qualities: It was most thoroughly built in every 
 part and could generate all the heat needed to incubate eggs in 
 a temperature below freezing point. 
 
 I soon found, however, that the difficulty did not consist so 
 much in generating the heat as iu controlling it. The regulating 
 apparatus consisted of a glass syphon, some two feet long filled 
 partly with alcoh)l and partly with mercury; the alcohol being 
 inside of the machine and the mercury outside. In this mercury 
 was inserted a wired cork. The heat was expected to expand 
 the alcohol, force up the mercury and raise the cork. Now as 
 this cork was attached by a small wire to the ventilator and by 
 a second wire to a cut-off on the lamp and worked simultaneously 
 on both, the least expansion or coutraction of the alcohol by heat 
 or cold was expected to control the heat in the egg chamber. 
 But unfortunately the alcohol was placed in the extreme bot- 
 tom of the machine, where there was the least heat, and the eggs 
 in the top where there was the most heat, so that, as the heat in- 
 creased the eggs got the benefit of it first and the liquor after- 
 wards, the damage was done before the remedy was provided. 
 
 I wrote to the manufacturer stating the difficulty. He as- 
 sured me that the machine was all right and that the trouble was 
 in me and entirely the result of my own ignorance and inexperi- 
 ence, and that I would soon get the hang of it. This was not 
 consoling, but I resolved that if there was any virtue in persis- 
 tency, I would succeed. 
 
 I will here digress enough to say that a course of twelve 
 years with that machine did not give me experience enough to 
 run it without the regular nightly visitations. The thing sat like 
 an incubus on my shoulders, and during the four months of each 
 year I never knew the luxury of sleeping a single night without 
 being obliged to get up, dress, and wend my way to that incuba- 
 tor room, often in storms or wallowing through snowbanks some- 
 times with the mercury below zero. But I did not flinch. I 
 resolved that if a failure it was, it would not be through me. 
 
 During this time the twenty hens were properly cared for. My 
 habit was to take off the birds during the extreme cold weather 
 in the warmest part of the day and during the fifteen minutes they 
 were off feeding and dusting, the eggs were carefully covered 
 
with a circular piece of paper so that when the birds were re- 
 turned to the nests the eggs had cooled but a few degrees. At 
 the endof twenty days there was a great chipping and chirping under 
 the hens, and at the close of the twenty-first day more than two hun- 
 dred lively Brahma chicks had made their appearance, but there 
 were no signs of life in the machine. I felt much discouraged about 
 this, because experience had often taught me that when chicks came 
 out forty-eight hours behind time, their number was sure to be small 
 and their life short. During the twenty-second day a faint chirping 
 was heard and a few eggs pipped. At the close of the twenty-third 
 day about thirty chicks, with my assistance, made their appearance ; 
 without that, they never would have seen the light of day. They 
 were a sorry looking set at best. The down was plastered to their 
 bodies by a sort of mucilaginous secretion from the eggs. They 
 seemed lifeless and debilitated and when consigned to the old hen, 
 kept her in a constant fever with their sickly plaints. They refused 
 to eat, dropped oS one by one and were soon a thing of the past. 
 All this time their natural and more favored brothers were doing 
 first-class work as far as consumption of food and growth were 
 concerned. 
 
CHAPTER IL 
 
 MY FIRST EXPERIENCE CONTINUED, 
 
 "I TOLD YOU SO"-KEEP THE INCUBATOR A SECRET-NOT DIS- 
 CO URA GED-INSTR UCTIOiYS FOLLO WED^MORE FAIL URES-THE FOR- 
 LORN HOPE-THE MACHINE CHICKS SHUFFLE OFF-RESULTS OF 
 CAREFUL WORK. 
 
 Well, my first attempt at artificial incubation had proved a 
 disastrous failure. Biddy had come out a long way ahead, and 
 to add to my trouble, my neighbors, who had looked on incredu- 
 lously from the first, now began to console me with the old re- 
 frain: "What did I tell you?" 
 
 By the way, I advise every one who intends purchasing an 
 incubator to keep it a profound secret from his neighbors. Call 
 the thing a " cold blast refrigerator," or anything you please, but 
 keep the neighbors out of the way until you have a good hatch, 
 then invite them in to see the chicks come out. If you happen 
 to have a poor hatch, and they should find it out, as they always 
 will, you will feel like whipping somebod}'^. 
 
 My courage, though somewhat abated, had not all oozed out. 
 I was resolved to try again, yet I did not see how I could improve 
 Jipon what I had done. I could get neither advice or consolation 
 from the inventor. The instructions were few and simple, and I 
 liad followed them to the letter. " Trim your lamps once and 
 turn your eggs twice a day. Run your machine at 103°. Change 
 your trays twice each day, putting your lower ones above and 
 your upper ones below each time. Be sure and cool your eggs off 
 fifteen minutes each day, taking them out of the machine to do it. 
 Keep your evaporating pans full of water." 
 
 My machine was again filled with eggs, twenty-five dozen 
 more were consigned to the care of brooding hens at the same 
 time, and the same routine carried out as before, though the de- 
 
— 9— 
 
 tails, were if possible, more carefully observed than ever. In the 
 meantime the business was conducted in the natural way the same 
 as of yore. Whenever a hen became broody she was supplied 
 with eggs and I had forty or fifty sitters constantly at work. In 
 due time the hens that were set with the machine duplicated their 
 former hatch. The machine did the same and came out as far 
 behind as ever. 
 
 That machine was filled a third and fourth time with no 
 better success. A fifth time it was filled with duck eggs, out of 
 which I did not get a single duck, except two or three which I 
 picked out, and those died at once, while my hens that behaved 
 themselves, got out an average of eleven ducks out of every 
 twelve eggs intrusted to their care. 
 
 It thus was an open question in my mind whether artificial 
 incubation under the most favorable circumstances could be made 
 
 Fig. 1.— My First Incubator. 
 a success. I had put nearly two hundred dozen eggs through 
 that machine. Those eggs were worth the greater part of the 
 time fifty cents per dozen. (That was the price I obtained for 
 them the entire winter from private families in Boston, they pay- 
 ing the express.) 
 
 Out of that two hundred dozen eggs I had got out less than 
 two hundred sorry-looking chicks. Those chicks had come out 
 apparently in all stages of development, and in every conceiva- 
 ble deformity. There were crooked legs, twisted bills, hump- 
 backs, clump feet. Numbers came out with the digestive organs 
 attached on behind like the antennae of a wasp, outside of the 
 chick instead of inside, where it ought to be. One in particular 
 introduced himself with one leg below and the other on his back 
 
—10— 
 
 Above, both so attached that he could make use of neither. Those 
 machine chicks, uulike their natural brothers, had a strong antip- 
 athy to locomotion; activity was their aversion. Their general 
 aspect was that of profound meditation. Their favorite attitude 
 was reclining on their broadside. They were boimd to shuffle off 
 this mortal coil at all hazards and no amount of petting or coax- 
 ing could induce them to reconsider their decision. 
 
 1 have my doubts to-day if I succeeded in maturing a single 
 one of those machine chicks. There could be no fault with the 
 eggs or the fowl from whence they came. In an experience of 
 thirty years, I have never had so highly fertilized eggs during the 
 winter months as during these trials; fully ninety-eight per cent 
 were fertile. Hens that behaved themselves came out with broods 
 of from ten to twelve chicks and sometimes hatched every egg. 
 On May 1, in summing up the winter's work, the account was 
 thus: From one hundred and eighty dozen eggs consigned to 
 hens, nearly one thousand chicks and two hundred and eighty 
 ducklings. From two hundred dozen put through the in- 
 cubator, 00. 
 
—11- 
 
 CHAPTER III, 
 
 Uf PROVING THE INCUBATOR. 
 
 I DO SOME THINKING-A VITAL ERROR DISCOVERED-THE PROS 
 AND coys OF COOLING EGGS-SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENTS— I AM 
 JUBILANT AND PREDICT GREAT THINGS— PRIDE HAS A FALL BUT 
 SOME ADVANCE IS MADE-NO DOUBTS ABOUT ARTIFICIAL INCU- 
 BATION— I REBUILD THE MACHINE. 
 
 During this time I had clone some thinking. There was 
 plainly a cause or causes for these failures. It was for my inter- 
 est to discover and remove them or else throw aside the machine 
 as worthless, which I was no': yet prepared to do. It had cost 
 too much money for that. 
 
 There was one thing that was entirely amiss. The machine 
 chicks had invariably come out behind time and yet I had repeat- 
 edly put glasses under hens to ascertain the temperature, which I 
 found about 103°, and then run the machine the same. But I 
 found that when the five hundred eggs were taken out of the in- 
 cubator and cooled off in a cold room for fifteen minutes, that 
 when they were returned to the machine there was such a large 
 body of them that the eggs seemed to cool the air in the machine 
 instead of the air warming the eggs; so much so, that when the 
 room was cold, it was often three and even four hours before the 
 eggs reached their normal heat. Thus in reality I had been run- 
 ning at a temperature of from 75° to 103°. 
 
 How had biddy been running? I would find out about that. 
 A hen was taken off the nest for fifteen minutes and then re- 
 turned ; when finally settled down, a glass was carefully placed 
 under her. In twenty minutes those eggs, brought into immedi- 
 ate contact with the rapidly pulsating arteries of the hen's body, 
 were back to their normal heat of 103°. Here was a solution of 
 the difficulty and yet my instructions were imperative to cool the 
 eggs fifteen minutes each day. But I found that cooling the eggs 
 
—12— 
 
 fifteen minutes at a temperature of 40° did as much execution as 
 cooling them fifty minutes with the room at a temperature of 80°. 
 Evidently things were mixed at headquarters. 
 
 It now occurred to me that though cooling off the eggs might 
 be a necessity to the old hen, it might not be at all essential to 
 the welfare of the embryo chick. Nothing easier than to find 
 out. I would run an experimental machine for the purpose and 
 settle the thing once for all. 
 
 I procured three paper-box covers, perforated the bottom 
 with holes, and placed them in the machine in the centre of the 
 drawers with a dozen eggs in each. 
 
 One box of those eggs was taken out daily and cooled to the 
 usual temperature. Another was taken out and cooled while 
 trimming the lamp, about three minutes. The other box was 
 not taken out during the hatch, the eggs being turned in the ma- 
 chine. The result of that experiment was six chicks from the box 
 of cooled eggs, and dead chicks in the other six eggs, in all stages 
 of development. 
 
 The box taken out for a moment or two, hatched ten chicks 
 and two died in the shell. From the box that was not moved, 1 
 took eleven lively chicks, the remaining egg being unfertile. 
 Those eleven chicks came out with that fine yellow tinge which 
 characterizes your healthy Brahma chick hatched in the natural 
 way. 
 
 To say that I felt relieved does not express it. I was jubi- 
 lant. I even went so far as to tell some of my loquacious neigh- 
 bors that they would see a thing or two when the next season 
 opened. 
 
 I made arrangements for an early start the coming winter, 
 as what broilers I had sold had brought sixty-five cents per pound 
 at the club houses in Boston and I did not have enough to supply 
 the demand. I started machines and hens about the first of Jan- 
 uary, taking every precaution to ensure success. My chagrin 
 may be imagined, when as I had confidently expected at least 
 ninty per cent to hatch, I in reality got but forty per cent. The 
 rest of the eggs contained chicks dead in all stages. 
 
 It was true it was a decided improvement on the last winter. 
 I had got three times as many chicks and they had come out 
 stronger and were doing well. They had also come out in time, 
 which was a great point. I tried a second hatch with the same 
 result, biddy coming out as usual. 
 
 I had no longer doubts about the success of artificial incuba- 
 tion. Those eleven chicks the previous year had proved it be- 
 yond a doubt. Notwithstanding the inventor's assertion, I be- 
 lieved the trouble was in the machine and not in me, because I 
 had heard in a roundabout way that he himself was not doing 
 any better than I was ; in fact, not as well, and I found that a 
 great many others were victimized with it like myself. 
 
 In an unfortunate moment, just after I was through with 
 that experimental hatch the season before, the inventor had writ- 
 
—13— 
 
 ten me for a testimonial, and being- elated at the time, I wrote 
 him that I had just got a one hundred per cent hatch. Of course 
 he made a free use of it, and it materially assisted him in victim- 
 izing others. 
 
 Being thoroughly convinced that the machine was at fault 
 and not myself, I overhauled it in every part. I found that the 
 egg-chamber was heated by perpendicular tanks on all sides ex- 
 cept that occupied by the door in front; also by a tank over the 
 top. 
 
 The machine was ventilated through the tank over the top, 
 in the centre of the egg-chamber, the cold air being admitted 
 through the doors in front. By this arrangement at the back of 
 the egg-chamber where it was all tank and constant heat radiating 
 therefrom, there was no ventilation, while in front, where there 
 was no heat, was located all the ventilation. 
 
 It was easy to see now where the trouble was. But why had 
 I not seen this before? I had blindly thrown away hundreds of 
 dollars' worth of time and eggs during the first two years. I wrote 
 the inventor plainly stating the defects in the construction of his 
 machine and asked him if he would not remodel it to suit me. He 
 answered me by asking if I pretended to know more about the 
 machine than the manufacturer who invented it. 
 
 I purchased a dozen glasses at once, resolved to know the 
 extent of the trouble. I placed those glasses in every part of the 
 egg-chamber. I found that while the temperature was 103° 
 in the centre it was 109° at the back and sides, and 100° at the 
 front ; and while the glasses represented 103° on the upper trays, 
 the lower ones represented 98°. 
 
 This at once accounted for my previous failures. I then 
 closed up the draft in front, and drawing the water out, bored 
 holes through the tank in the back and sides, admitting ventila- 
 tion where it was needed most, filling up the tank to just below 
 the egg-trays. This evened up the heat in the egg-chamber to a 
 great degree and decidedly increased my percentage of eggs 
 hatched. 
 
-^14— 
 
 CHAPTER IK 
 
 THE OLD, OLD STORY. 
 
 NOT SATISFIED— NEW SELF-REGULATING INCUBATORS— THE OLD 
 DIFFICULT V, UNEVEN TEMPERATURE-RECENT IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 But this was not satisfactory, for though I was tolerably 
 sure of from sixty to seventy per cent of the eggs hatching, yet 
 I could use but one tray, thus cutting the machine down to one- 
 third its original capacity, which made a very expensive machine 
 of it. I ran this incubator in connection with hens for a number 
 of years, and they made about an even thing of it. 
 
 Sometimes when I over-slept myself, biddy would come out 
 a little ahead; and again, when she would prove refractory, 
 smash eggs and give up the business just before the hatch was 
 due, the odds would be in favor of the machine. 
 
 I was dissatisfied with this state of things. Sad experience 
 had taught me what the requirements of a good incubator were. 
 How to get them all in one machine was the difficulty. In the 
 meantime, a number of new machines had been invented in dif- 
 ferent parts of the country, all claiming to do first-class work, 
 and to completely supercede the old machines which were de- 
 nounced as worthless. The heat in these machines was regulated 
 by batteries, thermostatic bars, etc., even to the fractional part of 
 a degree. The machines were accompanied by testimonials from 
 different parties, apparently genuine, claiming eighty, ninety, and 
 even one hundred per cent hatches. 
 
 I now thought my time had come, though I had done fairly 
 well with my machine for a number of years, yet I did not get 
 first-class hatches and there was altogether too much night work 
 connected with it, I was ready to buy another machine, if it was 
 as represented; and as some of them had drifted into the adjoin- 
 ing counties, I thought I would go and interview the owners of 
 these machines, and by personal investigation satisfy myself as to 
 their merits. 
 
—16— 
 
 One man said that he had put in a few eggs the first time 
 and hatched a pretty good percentage of them, and then filled up 
 his machine and somehow the battery got out of fix and he did 
 not hatch anything, but at the present time it was running nicely. 
 
 On visiting another of different pattern (also run by battery), 
 the operator said that he had put in a small number of eggs and 
 hatched nearly one hundred per cent. (By the way his testimo- 
 nial had particularly attracted my attention). But when he had 
 put in a large number of eggs his percentage was much smaller. 
 In fact the greater the number of eggs the smaller was his per- 
 centage of hatch. 
 
 I thought of my own experience several years before. With 
 the owner's permission I introduced glasses in different parts of 
 the machine. It was as I expected: no uniformity of heat in the 
 egg-chamber. The worst feature of my investigation was that 
 there were very few chicks to be seen and those few had a strong 
 resemblance to some of mine I had got out in similar manner six 
 or eight years before. 
 
 There was one exception, however. One man had about one 
 thousand chicks, but as he had also some seventy-five to one 
 hundred hens sitting at the same time, I was not sure of their or- 
 igin. I did not find things as favorable as I expected, for on 
 comparing notes the balance was decidedly in favor of my own 
 machine. 
 
 Let it be here understood that I do not wish to detract any- 
 thing from machines run by electricity. Some of these machines 
 have become greatly improved, as well as their batteries, and are 
 really doing good work. Others still have been more recently 
 invented and now stand side by side with the older machines. 
 
—16— 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A HOME-MADE MACHINE. 
 
 I BUILD AN INCUBATOR— IT HAS SOME GOOD AND SOME BAD POINTS 
 —REMEDYING THE DEFECTS. 
 
 I had now either got to run the old machine or make some- 
 thing better myself. I had had experience enough in this busi- 
 ness to know what the requirements of a good incubator were, but 
 how to get them all into one machine and have them work to- 
 gether harmoniously was something that had puzzled brighter 
 heads than mine. 
 
 During the autumn of 1878, I constructed a machine in the 
 shape of a parallelogram, with the hot water flowing through a 
 tanlc above the egg-trays and returning through a pipe which 
 wound round the machine several times, next the outside, and 
 entered the bottom of the boiler. This tank was so constructed 
 that the warm water flowed next the sides and the centre. 
 Though it was filled with water; as it was still water, it radiated 
 little or no heat. I had always noticed that the centre of a 
 machine was invariably the warmest, and my object was to obvi- 
 ate this difficulty as much as possible. I also constructed con- 
 cave egg-trays with a depression of about two inches in the centre, 
 thus removing the eggs that much further from the tank in the 
 centre of the machine, my object being to even up the heat on the 
 eggs. 
 
 This worked very well in one direction, but badly in another ; 
 for when the chick pipped in the bottom of that concave, he stood 
 a very poor chance of getting out with so many eggs pressing 
 down upon him from above. The only chance for these pipped 
 eggs was to place them on the outside above. This required con- 
 stant care during hatching, or a great loss of chicks was the re- 
 sult. 
 
—17— 
 
 This machine, though regulated in the same way as the old 
 one, ran much steadier and did far better hatching, my average 
 being eighty per cent. After running it two years in connection 
 with the old one, I saw where great improvements could be made 
 and resolved to build another machine on a different principle. 
 
 On examining the eggs that did not hatch, (some twenty per 
 cent of them), I found them nearly all matured and ready to 
 break the shell but for some reason did not come out. On ex- 
 amining those which did not hatch under hens, I found that these 
 died in all stages, especially the earlier part of the hatch. (These 
 last are the eggs which prove so oderiferous when roughly 
 handled by the boys). This proved conclusively that the machine 
 did better work during the first part of the hatch than the hens, 
 but for some reason they did not come out. This perplexed me 
 the most of anything in the whole business. 
 
 Other manufacturers had been troubled in a greater degree 
 than I had, and had settled down finally to the point that it re- 
 sulted from carbonic acid gas. This was a deadly gas generated 
 in large quantities by the maturing chicks, and unless quickly re- 
 moved was most fatal in its consequences. 
 
 Now we were told that this was a very heavy gas and could 
 not be forced out by common ventilation but must be got rid of 
 by counter currents of air. I had read much about this gas, and 
 not being much of a chemist had got it badly on the brain. Be- 
 sides, it really accounted for what otherwise seemed to to me in- 
 explicable. 
 
 2 
 
-18- 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION A SUCCESS. 
 
 THE NEW MACHINE— THE TEMPERATURE SUCCESSFULLY CON- 
 TROLLED—ANOTHER OBSTACLE— EXPERIMENT UPSETS ALL PRE- 
 VIOUS THEORIES— ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION A SUCCESS-EVAPOR- 
 ATION AND OTHER TROUBLES— THEY ARE PROVIDED FOR— SOME 
 GOOD HATCHES. 
 
 The new machine was built, completely double, with an inch 
 air-space all around it and so arranged with a downward current 
 of air as to force the carbonic acid gas out without in any way 
 interfering with the regular ventilation of the machine. This 
 machine about the middle of December was filled with about six 
 hundred eggs. Things worked admirably for a few days, as it 
 was regulated on an entirely new principle. 
 
 Previous to its construction I had been investigating the 
 science of hydrostatics with the view of learning the exact expan- 
 sion of water through h6at compared to that of air; also the 
 amount of water necessary in the tank, that its expansion and 
 contraction might give complete control of the ventilation and 
 lamps of the machine. This would be making the principle 
 which generated the superfluous heat provide for its own escape, 
 thus anticipating all trouble. This regulating principle was ap- 
 plied to the machine. It exceeded even my wildest anticipation. 
 No more night work now. It was really a pleasure to care for it. 
 
 But an unlooked for trouble presented itself. The weather, 
 which had been hitherto mild, suddenly changed. The mercury 
 went down below zero, the wind blew very hard and as my ma- 
 chine was located in an out-building I found it impossible to keep 
 up the proper heat. 
 
 Tliere had been a defect in the construction of the boilers. 
 The mechanic who made them misunderstood directions and com- 
 pletely reversed the principle desired. Consequently a very 
 
—19— 
 
 small amount of heat could be obtained and a dense smoke was 
 sure to follow any attempt to secure more. I filled my evaporat- 
 ing pans with hot water, and made a free use of hot bricks, but 
 relief was only temporary, I could not keep the temperature up. 
 
 There was but one thing to do, to save the eggs: cover the 
 machine with paper, then with blankets and close up the ventila- 
 tion entirely. The choice lay between losing the eggs from that 
 deadly carbonic acid gas or from an insufficient amount of heat. 
 The latter I know was surely fatal; of the other I had some little 
 doubt, and concluded to risk it. 
 
 That machine was packed during the entire hatch and opened 
 only when the chicks began to come out and must have air. 
 From that hatch I got nearly four hundred chicks, or more than 
 ninety per cent of the fertile eggs. This was by far the best 
 hatch I had ever got in an incubator from a machine full of eggs. 
 
 It is needless to say that my faith in carbonic acid gas suf- 
 fered a great abatement. In fact it has never troubled me any 
 since. I am often thrown in contact with parties who ask where 
 the ventilation is in my machine and how I get rid of that gas. 
 I say that my machine does not generate any, or not enough to 
 injure the eggs. The invariable answer is: The best authorities 
 unite in saying that this gas is generated in large quantities by 
 the eggs, and will surely kill the chicks if not got rid of. 
 
 " My dear sir: " I reply, " whenever your best hatches excel 
 or even equal my poorest ones, we will argue the matter further; 
 until then, please have me excused." 
 
 This always settles the matter. 
 
 The question of success in artificial incubation was clearly 
 settled in my mind. The use of hens for purposes of incubation 
 was entirely discontinued. But there was one thing which 
 was not clear. There' wei^e still some matured chicks 
 dead in the shell, and although there was but four or five per 
 cent of loss in this way in the dead of winter when eggs were 
 supposed to possess the least vitality, there was sure to be eight 
 or ten per cent during the warm weather of May when eggs 
 were known to possess the most vitality. 
 
 This puzzled me, for I knew the machines ran equally as 
 well, and received the same care. I did not thoroughly under- 
 stand the question of evaporation, just how much or how little 
 the egg required, and I thought that possibly might have some- 
 thing to do with this question. 
 
 It is true, the old hen did not use any evaporation, but by 
 means of an oily secretion from her skin and feathers, she im- 
 parted a coating or gloss to the egg which effectually prevented 
 its evaporating. I had no way of doing that in the machine, and 
 could only obviate it by an increased humidity of atmosphere in 
 the egg-chamber. 
 
 Different machines have different ways of doing this. I 
 have the best success by setting the water-pans on the hot pipes 
 below. This in cold weather always produced moisture on the 
 
—20— 
 
 glass doors of the machine, while in warm weather this moisture 
 was scarcely preceptible. The reason was obvious. 
 
 In cold weather the water in the tank and pipes required to 
 be much warmer in order to generate the proper heat in the egg- 
 chamber, and as water evaporated just in proportion to its tem- 
 perature, I was getting a great deal more evaporation in cold 
 weather than in warm. 
 
 For instance, on putting a glass in the water in the evaporat- 
 ing pans during the winter, they registered 90° to 100°, while in 
 warm weather they registered but 85° to 90°. In the one case 
 the moisture was running down the glass during the entire hatch, 
 while in the other, it was scarcely preceptible. Might not this be 
 the cause of the trouble? 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 
 The next season, in 1883, as the weather grew warmer, I 
 gradually increased the evaporating surface in the egg-chamber, 
 keeping the glass in the doors moist, and carefully watched the 
 effect. There were less dead chicks than usual; in fact, but 
 three or four in each tray. 
 
 A few days later, another machine was started with l"ly- 
 mouth Rock eggs, and the water surface increased still more. 
 Things were kept decidedly sticky in that egg-chamber through 
 the entire hatch. The result was, on one tray, one hundred and 
 fourteen chicks from one hundred and fifteen eggs; on another, 
 one hundred and fifteen chicks from one hundred and twenty 
 eggs. Taking the whole, machine it was fully as good a hatch asl 
 
 had ever had. , p ,, i • i i. 
 
 But I had to help at least one-fourth of those chicks out. 
 They were literally packed in the shell. They could pip, but 
 could not turn in the shell. Once out they were unusually large 
 
 and active. . ,, ^ . 
 
 The trouble was, the eggs did not evaporate during the first 
 week of the hatch, as it is necessary they should do, and as they 
 always do the first few days under hens before the pores are 
 filled with the secretion from the birds feathers. . 
 
—21— 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 THE SCIENCE OF INCUBATION, 
 
 THE SCIENCE OF IT— VARIOUS EXPERIMENTS-SPRINKLING EGOS 
 NOT NECESSARY— IT DERANGES THE TEMPERATURE. 
 
 Now if no more water surface is exposed in warm weather 
 than in cold, not more than one-half the moisture is secured. 
 Everyone knows that during the last part of a hatch, on well fer- 
 tilized eggs, not more than one-half as much oil is consumed in 
 the lamps as in the first part; for the reason that the increased 
 animal heat in the 3'oung chicks is so great that much less heat is 
 required from the lamps to sustain the needed temperature. 
 
 If, then, the water surface is not increased as the heat in the 
 pipes decrease, your chick gets the least moisture just when he 
 needs the most. The effect of this is to evaporate the eggs, 
 weaken the chick, and toughen the inner lining or memhrane of 
 the egg which envelopes him. This membrane contracts around 
 his body like thin rubber and imprisons him so firmly that he is 
 unable to turn and free himself from the shell. 
 
 In the spring of 1884, I ran an experimental machine of five 
 hundred eggs for the sole purpose of solving the different points 
 of dispute in regard to artificial incubation. Some parties advo- 
 cate sprinkling as the only true method of generating moisture. 
 Some authorities claim that 103° is the proper temperature to 
 run; others, 104°; others still, 102°. Others claim that there is 
 no need of turning the eggs, and that they will hatch just as well 
 without. 
 
 In this experimental machine were placed four trays of eggs: 
 one tray was run at a temperature of 102° ; No. 2 tray, at 104° ; 
 while No. 3 and No. 4 were run at 103°. No. 4 tray the first 
 week was drenched with lukewarm water twice each day, while 
 in the No. 3 tray were put two paper box covers, each holding- 
 two dozen eggs. In one box the eggs were laid in a natural po- 
 sition on their side ; in the other they were stood up on their 
 
—22— 
 
 small end. In neither box were they moved at all till they 
 hatched. 
 
 The No. 2 tray, running at 104°, began to pip the nineteenth 
 day, and the chicks were pretty well out on the twentieth day. 
 The down on those chicks was very white and short. Only 
 seventy-five per cent hatched. They were anything but first- 
 class chicks. 
 
 In the No. 3 tray which had the boxes of eggs in different pos- 
 itions, which were carefully turned and run at a temperature of 
 103°, about ninety-six per cent hatched. In the box where the 
 eggs stood on one end, forty-seven per cent hatched, and the 
 chicks were strong. In the other box fifty-four per cent hatched. 
 
 Fig. 3. 
 
 The remaining eggs in both boxes had dead chicks in all stages 
 of development. It was a case where the fittest survived. 
 
 No. 1 tray came out one day behind time, the last ones re- 
 quiring some assistance. About eighty per cent hatched and the 
 chicks not particularly strong. 
 
 No. 4 tray came out behind time also,*about eighty per cent 
 hatching, but not in first-class condition. The reason is, that 
 after eggs are sprinkled the rapid evaporation quickly reduces 
 the heat in the eggs and will cool them from 103° down to 90° in 
 a few minutes, so that in sprinkling twice daily, one is actually 
 running at from 103° to 90°, as it is always an hour or two be- 
 fore the eggs obtain their normal heat. 
 
 I have never yet in all my experience been able to get a first- 
 class hatch while sprinkling. The effect of sprinkling has always 
 been -vvith me, to retard the hatch and reduce its percentage. In 
 fact, it cannot well be otherwise, as moisture generated through 
 sprinkling is only periodical, and for the above mentioned rea- 
 sons is constantly deranging the temperature in the egg-chamber. 
 
-23— 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 THE LOCATION OF INCUBATORS. 
 
 THE BEST LOCATION FOR AN INCUBATOR-WHY IT IS IMPORTANT- 
 A CELLAR THE BEST PLACE— INSURANCE RATES AND INCUBA- 
 TORS-THE SELECTION OF EGGS— HOW TO HAVE FERTILE EGGS 
 -GREEN FOOD IN WINTER-KEEPING EGGS. 
 
 The best place to run an incubator is either in a house 
 cellar or a barn cellar, for obvious reasons. If your machine is 
 placed in an out-building, or even in a room without a fire, in 
 very cold weather it will freeze around the machine, and taking 
 out and turning a large body of eggs in a freezing temperature 
 twice each day is apt to derange the temperature of the machine 
 and impair and retard the. hatch. Then again, outside heat ef- 
 fects such a building as quickly as outside cold, and in the sum- 
 mer time, with the sun shining on the roof, the glass often reaches 
 90° to 95°. In these circumstances, it is very difficult to run 
 any light at all without running too much heat. 
 
 I am well aware that some manufacturers say that it makes 
 no difference to their machines where they are located, as it is the 
 inside heat which regulates their machines and the ventilation is 
 increased correspondingly. But, friends, in a very warm temper- 
 ature, if you attempt to reduce the heat in your egg-chamber by 
 admitting large volumes of dry air, you are completely destroy- 
 ing the humidity of your atmosphere. Then how about those 
 chicks coming out? 
 
 I am at present writing, during the month of June, running 
 four large machines with ducks' eggs. These machines are in an 
 out-building with the sun shining directly on the roof, in which 
 case it is sure to be warmer inside of that building than out. 
 During the last two or three days of each hatch, the lights are 
 put out entirely, the animal heat in the young ducks being all suf- 
 ficient to run the machine with what little ventilation they need. 
 
—24— 
 
 It is true I might run one light, but in consequence I should 
 be oblige to admit large quantities of dry air and then the little 
 fellows would have a hard time getting out, and some never will 
 get out without help, which must be given at just the right time. 
 
 It is true an expert could run incubators either in a warm or 
 a cold temperature, and even in a place subject to all manner of 
 changes, when a novice would not succeed at all. 
 
 Sometimes insurance companies object to incubators being 
 run in insured buildings, and will cancel their policies if persisted 
 in. In that case, it is very easy to dig into the side of % bank or 
 in the ground and stone up a little building for the purpos ; the 
 expense would be trifling. 
 
 In the selection of eggs for hatching, it is well to reject all 
 very small eggs and unusually large ones, as well as all eggs that 
 are rough on either end, as those eggs are apt to be porous and 
 will be sure to evaporate during the hatch. 
 
 One of the greatest advantages in the use of incubators is 
 the power it gives one of hatching his chicks when they will 
 bring the highest price in the market, and as this is invariably 
 in the winter, the essential point of all is to secure good fertile 
 eggs. 
 
 Now it is a very easy matter to make hens lay abundantly 
 during the winter. That has been reduced to a fine thing, but to 
 
 Fig. 4. 
 make those eggs fertile requires different management 
 altogether. It is very easy to put one hundred to one hun- 
 dred and fifty hens in a building, allowing three or four square 
 feet to each fowl, and with proper sanitary arrangements, good 
 care and diet, secure large returns in eggs; but under these con- 
 ditions those eggs will not be fertile. 
 
 One reason is the extreme jealousy of so many cocks in one 
 harem. Another reason is the want of exercise, which debilitates 
 the fowl and the consequent lack of vitality in both fowl and 
 eggs. 
 
 In order to obviate this, I always clear away the snow in 
 front of my houses, and get the fowls out whenever the weather 
 
—25— 
 
 will allow and give them all the exercise possible. In the fall, 
 say the latter part of August, I sow a field of rye quite thickly 
 and by fertilizing it freely get it about eighteen inches high, a 
 green mass of vegetation. When frozen hard, and just before 
 the snow covers it, I cut it and pack it in an out-building where 
 it will keep frozen. In this condition it will take no injury and 
 be always available for use, as a few moments exposure to warm 
 air will fit it for use, when it is chopped fine and fed to the fowls. 
 
 A free use of this rye, alternating with boiled potatoes and 
 turnips, together with refuse cabbage, which can be had cheaply, 
 and a plenty of exercise, will always produce fertile eggs, the 
 other conditions being right — say about thirty healthy, well devel- 
 oped pullets with two vigorous young cockerels. 
 
 In cold weather the eggs should be gathered two or three 
 times a day to prevent their chilling. Eggs may be kept safely 
 for three weeks in cool weather before putting in an incubator, 
 if carefully turned each day. This can be done readily by means 
 of egg cases, which can be turned when partly full as well as 
 when full. A record should be kept of their age, so that no mis- 
 takes need be made. 
 
—26— 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TESTING THE EGGS. 
 
 THE EGO-TESTER-WHAT IT REVEALS-A SAVING OF TIME AND 
 MONEY- A STRIKING INSTANCE OF COMMON IGNORANCE— NECE S- 
 SITY OF FERTILE EGGS-INFERTILE EGOS THE CAUSE OF MUCH 
 DISSATISFACTION WITH INCUBATORS-A GOOD HOME-MADE EGG- 
 TESTER. 
 
 One of the many useful things required in the poultry busi- 
 ness, whether conducted in a natural or artificial manner, is an 
 egg-tester. It enables a person, before he has lost much time, to 
 ascertain whether his eggs are good and fertile, and if not he can 
 replace them with good ones at the end of five or six days. If 
 his own eggs are infertile, the tester enables him to procure bet- 
 ter from his neighbors. 
 
 I once knew a man, early in February, to set forty or fifty 
 hens with a view to grow a lot of broilers for early market. When 
 the hens came off, he found that there were but two or three fer- 
 tile eggs under each hen. Now had he examined his eggs at the 
 end of four or five days with a tester, he might have put the few 
 fertile eggs under several hens and supplied the remainder with 
 good eggs. He would have lost but little except in the first cost 
 of his eggs. As it was, the best of the season had passed and he 
 could not hope to receive large profits from his chicks. 
 
 I was called by a friend to see his incubator. He told me 
 that he had put five hundred eggs in it and had hatched only one 
 chick, and that died, and he wished me to ascertain the cause if I 
 could. I found the eggs in the machine just as he had left them. 
 I broke several hundred of them without finding the least sign of 
 fertility in them. The yolk was intact and the white as clear 
 apparently as when first laid. I told him that he had done very 
 well, as he had hatched one hundred per cent of all the fertile 
 eggs. At the ame time I told him that any man who would de. 
 
-27— 
 
 liberately run a machine three weeks on five hundred eggs with- 
 out taking any pains to ascertain their quality, had better change 
 his occupation, for he would never succeed in the poultry busi- 
 ness. 
 
 There are quite a number of egg-testers in the market, 
 some of which are not suitable for incubator use, as they require 
 the egg to be adjusted in a certain position, making it a mere 
 waste of time and heat. A good practical egg-tester for incuba- 
 tors can be made in fifteen minutes and will last a lifetime. 
 
 Take a common oblong box without a top, make a hole in 
 the bottom about three inches in diameter, nearly opposite the 
 blaze of your lantern when standing on the inner end of the box. 
 or hanging on a peg (Fig. 5). 
 
 Fig. 5. 
 
 Nail over this hole a piece of an old rubber boot-leg, with a hole 
 about the size of an egg. Put your lantern inside of that box 
 some evening, and yourself on the outside, hang it up just over 
 your egg-tray and you have the best thing out for a tester; you 
 can easily trace the veins in the embryo chick, and the first signs 
 of fertility as they appear. 
 
—28- 
 
 CHAPTER X, 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHICKS. 
 
 THE DIFFERENT STAGES OF INCUBATION— HOW RECOGNIZED— IN 
 DUCKS AND HENS EGGS— THE PROCESS ILLUSTRATED— THE LIV- 
 ING AND DEAD EMBRYO-ADVICE TO BEGINNERS. 
 
 A person about to enter the poultry business, should ac- 
 quaint himself as soon as possible with the egg at different stages 
 of incubation, as this knowledge will in many cases save 
 him from disaster and loss. It is a sad mistake to wait till the 
 three weeks are expired before one finds out whether his eggs are 
 good for anything or not. 
 
 I have known men repeatedly to set hens at different times 
 in the winter as they became broody, until they had as many as 
 thirty or forty hens, covering as many dozen valuable eggs, and 
 never find out that the eggs were worthless until the first lot was 
 due, and they found no chicks, when a short examination of the 
 eggs about the fifth or sixth day, would have saved the loss of 
 both time and eggs. 
 
 The fertility in ducks and white-shelled hens eggs can be 
 easily detected by an expert the third day after they are put in 
 the incubator or under the hen; the quality of dark-shelled 
 eggs from Asiatic fowl, so far as they are fertile, about the fourth 
 or fifth day. 
 
 Fig. 2 represents an egg as it appears during the third day, 
 through an egg-tester. The dark spot seen in the egg enlarges 
 each day, becoming more opaque as incubation progresses, until 
 the seventh day, when it covers the entire egg. In the meantime , 
 about the fifth day, a dark spot will be seen near the centre of 
 the egg, towards its upper surface, from which in a live embryo 
 a few irregular veins can be distinctly perceived. As the egg is 
 
—29— 
 
 held to the light this spot will float on the upper side of the egg, 
 as it is turned. This is represented in Fig. 3, Page 22. 
 
 It is sometimes difficult in this stage to distinguish the live 
 from the dead embryo. The latter will, on the sixth or seventh 
 day, present a broken, clouded appearance, the contents usually 
 revolving with the egg when it is turned; while the living embryo 
 will usually rise to the upper side or top of the egg. The dead 
 
 Fig. 6. 
 
 embryo at this stage is represented in Fig. 4, There are eggs 
 that are slightly fertilized but without vitality enough to carry 
 them through; they will sometimes become offensive and should 
 be removed both from under hens and from the incubator. 
 
 In Fig. 6, I give the appearance of the living embryo as seen 
 through the shell on the tenth and eleventh days. At this time, 
 
 Fig. 7. 
 
 if the egg is held steadily to the light, motion can be plainly seen, 
 as well as the trembling of the pulsating arteries. At this stage 
 even a novice can easily detect a fertile from an infertile egg, and 
 can soon learn to distinguish a dead from a living embryo. 
 
 From this stage onward, the contents of the egg grow darker, 
 until the sixteenth or seventeenth days, when the egg 
 
—30— 
 
 becomes entirely opaque, as represented in Fig. 7, except the 
 air eell in the long end of the egg. This air cell, though it exists 
 in every egg, is extremely small in a fresh laid one, and as incu- 
 bation progresses gradually enlarges, through the evaporation of 
 the white of the egg, until the sixteenth day, after which the 
 chick begins to enlarge and the air cell grows correspondingly 
 smaller, so that when the chick is ready to pip the cell is little 
 more than one-half as large as it was three days previous. 
 
 It is not well for an amateur to test his eggs too soon or un- 
 til he has had some experience in the business, as there is a vast 
 difference (as seen in the egg-tester), between a white-shelled 
 egg and a brown, a thick, or a thin-shelled egg. I have repeatedly 
 known dark brown eggs at the end of three weeks to be entirely 
 opaque, and yet when broken have the appearance of fresh laid 
 eggs. 
 
 During the process of incubation say, at the eighth or ninth 
 day, it is easy for anyone to distinguish between a fertile and an 
 infertile egg, but not so easy to detect a dead embrj^o when seen 
 through the shell. The best way is to mark all doubtful eggs 
 and return them to the machine, examine them again at the thir- 
 teenth or fourteenth days, when if no change has taken place 
 they can be safely removed from the machine. 
 
 Fig. 8 represents the appearance of 
 the embryo at the twelfth day when taken 
 from the shell, when it will kick vigorously. 
 From this time the growth and develop- 
 ment is rapid. After this point, the chick 
 will bear far greater changes of heat and 
 cold than at the earlier stages of incubation. 
 
 At one time, through my own careless- 
 ness, I allowed the temperature to reach 
 114° for a short time on the eighteenth day 
 of a hatch. There were four hundred fertile 
 eggs in the machine. The next day both the inside and outside 
 doors of the machine were left open. The glasses on the eggs 
 registered 68°, and yet three hundred and seventy-one chicks 
 were hatched from those eggs on the twenty-first day, or over 
 ninety-two per cent. But anything like that variation during the 
 first ten days would be fatal to every egg. 
 
 The eyes, beak, legs and feet of the embryo are gradually 
 developed, but it is not till the nineteenth day that the yolk is 
 completely absorbed and the chick ready to come out. He be- 
 gins by making a faint peeping inside of the shell; then breaks 
 the shell; then makes his way entirely around the shell, breaking 
 it as he goes, and finally bursts open his shell and makes his ap- 
 pearance. A good healthy chick will do this himself without any 
 assistance from the operator. Sometimes it is necessary or well 
 to assist the chick in breaking the shell after it has got its head 
 out. 
 
^-31— 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE CARE OF INCUBATORS. 
 
 [MPORTAyCE OF THE SUBJECT— yEGLECT FATAL EVEN WITH" SELF- 
 EEO'C'LATORS"-TESTLVG THE MACHISE-TEMPERATURE-A HOT 
 ROOM yo PLACE FOR AN INCUBATOR— SPRINKLING— THE LAMP- 
 TURNING EGGS— USE GOOD OIL— THE THERMOMETER. 
 
 This is one of the most important items in the whole busi- 
 ness. Many manufacturers of incubators give such a glowing 
 account of the self-regulating qualities of their machines that 
 purchasers think that all they have to do is to fill the machine 
 with eggs, light the lamps, and at the end of three weeks take out 
 the chicks. 
 
 Now it is as well to understand here that no incubator ever 
 has been or ever will be put before the public that will bear neg- 
 lect, because there are certain duties which must be done peri- 
 odically, such as turning the eggs, trimming and filling the 
 lamps, looking after the machinery to see that there is no chafing 
 or friction on the bearings, etc. It is well to run a machine for 
 several days before introducing the eggs, for if you cannot run it 
 without eggs you certainly cannot when full of hen fruit, and it is 
 well to run no risks. 
 
 There are so many different patterns and styles of incuba- 
 tors, nearly all regulated in different ways, that it would be next 
 to impossible to give instructions that would apply to all. There 
 are, however, many points and generalities which are necessarily 
 common to all machines, such as temperature, moisture, ventila- 
 tion, uniformity and regularity of heat. 
 
 No machine should be put in a room where there is a great 
 variation of temperature, as it will require regulating each time 
 there is a great change ; for the reason that the amount of heat 
 required to run a machine in a room of 80° would not be suffi- 
 cient to run the machine at a temperature of 40°, while the 
 amount of heat required to run a machine in a temperature of 
 40° would necessitate an immense ventilation to keep the heat 
 within limits inside the machine. Though this might be met by 
 some machines, there is yet one difficulty that cannot be over- 
 come. The increased ventilation carries off the moisture from 
 the egg-chamber and that means a hardened Qgg shell, a tena- 
 
—32— 
 
 cious inside membrane and the inevitable dead chick in the shell. 
 A very warm place is unsuitable for running an incubator, as it 
 requires far more care and judgment and would puzzle a novice. 
 
 I received a letter from a gentleman in Illinois a few days 
 ago w^o is using a Monarch incubator. He was running the ma- 
 chine during the month of July, when the weather was excessive- 
 ly warm, in a building exposed to the heat. During the last 
 three days of the hatch the animal heat of the eggs was so great 
 that (there were twelve hundred fertile eggs in the machine) he was 
 obliged to put out the lights entirely and then the heat in the 
 egg-chamber went up repeatedly to 110° and 111°. Finally he 
 was obliged to open both outside and inside doors of the machine, 
 m order to reduce the heat. 
 
 Now this was all wrong; for though he reported a fair hatch, 
 yet there were a great many pipped eggs with dead chicks in 
 them. Had he sprinkled his eggs profusely with tepid water 
 and shut the doors of his machine, the rapid evaporation would 
 have cooled his eggs down to the required temperature, and at 
 the same time generated all the moisture needed, and there would 
 have been no dead chicks. Sprinkling about once in four hours 
 would have met this case. 
 
 A* a rule I do not encourage sprinkling, for reasons already 
 mentioned in this work, but in this case it was the only way to 
 secure a good hatch. During the past six weeks (June- August), 
 I have had the same experience repeatedly in running large 
 hatches of duck eggs. The animal heat in the eggs alone kept 
 the machine at 106° to 108° with the lights all out, the excess- 
 ive heat being kept down only by sprinkling the eggs. 
 
 Never use more flame on the lamps than is necessary, as too 
 much heat is not only a waste of oil, but in most self-regulating 
 machines means increased ventilation, which for reasons before 
 mentioned is sure to impair the hatch. 
 
 In taking eggs out of the machine to turn them, they should 
 be handled quickly and carefully. As the center of nearly all 
 machines is usually the warmest, and the outside near the doors 
 the coldest, it is well not only to change the drawers end for end 
 in the machine, but to change the eggs from the ends of the trays 
 to the center each day. Always place the thermometer on the 
 eggs in the center of the drawer, as in most machines the heat is 
 greatest in the center. Eggs should be turned twice each day. 
 
 In running machines regulated by electricity a constant sup- 
 ply of chemicals should be kept on hand. The solution in the 
 battery must be kept strong, the metals thoroughly cleaned 
 and the zinc removed often, as a weakened solution and conse- 
 quent want of action in the battery, because of a little neglect, 
 have often cost a whole hatch. 
 
 Always use the best of oil — 160° test. Poor oils are not 
 only unsafe, but unreliable, as they are sure to crust in a few 
 hours, clog the extinguishers, and as crusted wicks give out little 
 or no heat it necessitates trimming several times each day. 
 
—33— 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 BROODERS, THEIR CONSTRUCTION AND USE. 
 
 HESS AS BROODERS— THE INCUBATOR A SUCCESS, BUT AN ARTIFI- 
 CIAL MOTHER NEEDED— I MAKE A BROODER-ITS REMARKABLE 
 SUCCESS— PLENTY OF HEAT AND NO VERMIN— THE MERITS OF 
 VARIOUS BROODERS-IMPORTANCE OF GOOD ARTIFICIAL MOTH- 
 ERS—OVERCROWDING—A CHEAP AND EASILY MADE BROODER. 
 
 It will be observed that during the first part of my experi- 
 ence with incubators, my greatest trouble was to get chicks 
 enough from them to supply my broody hens. During the latter 
 part the trouble was to get hens enough to care for the chicks. 
 
 When hens were laying well and there was a reasonable ex- 
 pectation of their soon becoming broody, machines were filled 
 with eggs anticipating that event. But I was so often disap- 
 pointed that I have sometimes been obliged to put forty to fifty 
 chicks to each hen. Of course a sad mortality was sure to fol- 
 low. The situation was becoming desperate and nearly as bad 
 as at first. There was now no trouble in hatching. T could get 
 out strong, healthy chicks in any desired quantity, but as I wished 
 to get them out in winter, the question was, what to do with 
 them. 
 
 In the autumn of '79, I began the construction of artificial 
 brooders, anticipating the winter's hatch. These brooders were 
 intended to accommodate about two hundred chicks. The heat 
 was generated in copper boilers, flowed through an iron pipe and 
 returned to the boiler through a galvanized iron tank. This tank 
 was eleven inches wide and five and one-half feet long, and sup- 
 plied the heat to the chicks. I proposed to try one carefully and 
 satisfy myself as to its utility before using them on a larger 
 scale. 
 
 In pursuance of this plan, I chose one of my chicken houses 
 some seventy-five feet long for the purpose. In one end of this 
 building I put eight hens, giving them, in addition to what chicks 
 they hatched themselves, one hundred chicks from an incubator 
 
—34— 
 
 started for the purpose. In the other end of this building I put 
 a brooder with one hundred and fifty chicks taken from the same 
 incubator. They all received the same care, except that the hens' 
 department got a great deal the most because they needed it. 
 
 ^-^ 
 
 ep 
 
 ■^ 
 
 m 
 
 xS 
 
 7^z:r^' 
 
 ^ 
 
 Fig. 9. A Good lu-Door Brooder. 
 
 Those chicks were hatched January 21. On May 25 following, 
 when four months and four days old, the chicks were sent to 
 market. 
 
 Of the one hundred and fifty brooder chicks, one hundred 
 and thirty-five were matured, a number had died in the brooder, 
 one or two were drowned, and as brooder chicks are ver}^ tame 
 and my understanding unusually well developed, as a natural 
 consequence quite a number were trodden upon. The largest 
 chicks in the brooder weighed six and one-half pounds. The 
 aggregate v/eight was six hundred and thirty-nine pounds, and the 
 price received, forty-five cents per pound live weight, amounting 
 to $287.55 
 
 Of those chicks which were consigned to the hens, ninety- 
 eight were left. Their aggregate weight was three hundred and 
 ninety-two pounds, which brought $176.40. Not one of those 
 hens' chicks weighed over four pounds. It is needless to state 
 that the brooders were brought into requisition at once. 
 
 After April 1 the brooders were located out of doors in dif- 
 ferent parts of the yard. Hens were supplied with chicks and 
 placed at a proper distance. All were properly cared for, as I 
 was bound to see the experiment carried out through the entire 
 season. In every case the advantage was with the brooders. Not 
 only was the mortality less, hut the chicks were larger and their 
 condition better. And strange to say, where the hens were lo- 
 cated near the brooders, before the chicks were ten days old, they 
 would leave the hens and crowd into the brooder and some hens 
 had not a chick left. Thay had found where there was plenty of 
 heat and no vermin. 
 
—35— 
 
 That season's experience perfectly satisfied me in regard to the 
 utility of brooders. I have made no use of hens since, as all I re- 
 quire of them is to furnish me with eggs. I have each season 
 grown from three thousand to four thousand chicks. These chicks 
 have been grown principally in the winter and early spring 
 months, in order to secure the highest market prices. 
 
 I am often asked the question, " Do you consider your 
 brooder the best in the market? If not, which is the best? " Now 
 this is a very delicate question for me to answer, and then it de- 
 
 Fii,'. 10. air. Kaukin's Brooder. 
 
 pends a great deal upon what one wants a brooder for. I will 
 answer this question by saying, that for durability and for out- 
 door work for keeping chicks dry and warm, I have never used 
 anything I liked better; but for inside work brooders can be 
 made for a great deal less expense that will do equally as 
 good work. 
 
 There are a great many different kinds of brooders in the 
 market, some of which do very good work, some require more 
 care than others, some are altogether too high priced and elabo- 
 rate in their construction to be of use to the practical poultry 
 grower. Others are comparatively worthless, being regular 
 death-traps to the chicks, while others still are evidently built by 
 men who have little or no knowledge of the business and are of 
 little practical use. 
 
 This cpiestion of good brooders is, next to incubators, the 
 most important in the whole business. It is more than useless to 
 hatch out strong healthy chicks in large numbers only to have 
 them smothered in worthless brooders. The worst feature of this 
 is that incubator men themselves not only injure the reputation 
 of their own brooders, but those of others, by advertising them 
 at more than double their actual capacity, thus ensuring a great 
 mortality to start with. Innocent parties buy them and ignor- 
 antly fill them up according to instructions, when disaster is sure to 
 follow through -over-crowding and consequent over-heating. 
 
 Serious trouble often arises from over-heating brooders. Too 
 much heat will surely cause diarrhoea. This trouble is often at- 
 tributed to improper food, when a course of treatment is adopted 
 which is of little avail so long as the cause is not removed. 
 
 I will describe a brooder (Fig. 9) in use in this vicinity, 
 «rhich I think is the cheapest and best extant for indoor use. 
 
—36— 
 
 Take a box three feet square, without either top or bottom; the 
 sides should be eight inches high. Nail ou this box for a cover a 
 piece of zinc (A) three feet square, which will cover it exactly. 
 Nail on the top of this zinc, around the outside edges, strips of 
 board one inch or three-fourths of an inch square, cutting a space 
 (B) through in the center of each side three-fourths of an inch 
 wide. Nail over these strips a tight half -inch board cover (C). 
 Now bore in the center of this cover a two-inch hole. Insert 
 in this hole a two-inch zinc tube three inches long, indicated by 
 the dotted lines. This tube should lead simply through the board 
 cover into the air space between that and the zinc below. Run 
 another pipe, smaller and longer, as shown at E, down through 
 the air-chamber into the box, for the lamp smoke to pass up and 
 away. Now take a piece of board two feet square and nail four 
 legs to it which will raise it three inches high ; then tack some 
 woolen fringe around the sides of this board cover, slashing it up 
 every two or three inches. This should stand on the platform 
 so that the zinc tube will be exactly in the center and leave a 
 little more than half an inch between the board cover and the top 
 of the tube. This is the brooder for the chicks. All that is 
 wanted now i^ a tin lamp with an American Diamond burner, set 
 inside the box underneath the zinc. By this arrangement the air 
 is drawn in through the holes left open at the sides between the 
 zinc and the board cover, is heated by the lamps, and passes up 
 through the zinc tube and radiates out all over the chicks, giving 
 them a constant siipply of pure, warm air. 
 
 I consider this the best brooder out for inside work; it will 
 accommodate fifty chicks. A dollar and a half in money and 
 three hours' labor will make it. An incline should be made for 
 the chicks to run up. The superior ventilation of this brooder, 
 the ease with which it can be cleaned, and its cheapness make it, 
 for in-door work, superior to any other. 
 
—37— 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 THE CARE OF CHICKS. 
 
 THE FIRST MEAL— KIND OF FEED— GREEN FOOD ESSENTIAL— FRE- 
 QUENCY OF MEALS— EXERCISE— SKIM-MILK— BUILDINGS FOR WIN- 
 TER CHICKS— THEIR CONSTRUCTION AND DESIGN— HEATING- 
 BROODERS VS. THE BOILER A.ND PIPES' SYSTEM— BEST TIME TO 
 HATCH FOR EARLY BROILERS— AN EXPERIENCE IN POINT— WHEN 
 TO SELL-HATCHING WINTER LAYERS— SYSTEM OF HATCHES. 
 
 The chicks should be fed for the first time about thirtj-six 
 hours after leaving the shell. The very best feed extant for 
 that purposo is the infertile eggs boiled hard, chopped fine, and 
 mixed with one part egg and three parts bread crumbs for the 
 first three days. Chicks will always thrive on this feed. After 
 three days, the feed may consist of three parts of Indian meal 
 with one part scalded shorts. 
 
 This diet should be interspersed with green feed, such as 
 grass, chopped onions, boiled potatoes, refuse cabbage, etc. 
 Cracked corn and wheat may be added as they grow older — say 
 when ten days old. 
 
 Feed four or five times a day, when your chicks are first out, 
 and never give them moro than they can eat clean. Give a little 
 meat occasionally, and above all give the young things plenty of 
 exercise; everything depends upon that. Dig away the snow in 
 front of your poultry buildings if in winter. The chicks will not 
 need much urging; simply give them the opportunity to go out 
 when the sun shines. Always recollect that the most active mem- 
 bers of the body, cither in man or animals, are the first to suffer 
 from disease, and that swollen feet, and weak and crippled limbs 
 in young chicks; — though usually attributed to rheumatism — are 
 simply caused by too highly concentrated food and too little exer- 
 cise, thus causing a total want of action in the digestive organs, 
 and the chicks literally starve in the midst of plenty. 
 
Skim milk, either sweet or sour, is excellent for mixing the 
 feed. It will give young chicks a vigor and a growth in cold 
 weather when other things fail. Plenty of clean water should be 
 kept by them and milk when obtainable. 
 
 Brooders and runs should be cleaned out thoroughly and 
 often, and the whole premises kept well disinfected. 
 
 In constructing suitable buildings for growing mnter chicks, 
 convenience as well as economy should be taken into considera- 
 tion. For as labor is nearly the most expensive essential in a 
 poultry establishment, buildings should be gotten up with a view 
 to economise that even if the original cost should be a little more. 
 I am more and more satisfied that a walk three or four feet wide 
 is a necessary adjunct to both poultry and chicken buildings of 
 over thirty feet in length. 
 
 A good building for chicks in winter should be about four- 
 teen feet wide, facing the south, with a four foot walk on the rear 
 side. It should be divided off, into pens five feet wide, a brooder 
 and fifty chicks in each. This would give a space five by ten 
 feet to fifty chicks. There should be a yard of corresponding 
 width in front for out-door exercise. This building can be ex- 
 tended to any desired length, and need not be more than two feet 
 high in front, with, say, five feet posts in the rear. It can be put 
 up with an unequal double roof, with a ten foot slope in front 
 
 
 
 Oicfcsuit .b- 
 
 
 Ay-^ 
 
 • ^ ; 
 
 A^-' 
 
 A^ 
 
 ^•~-' 
 
 Fit,'. II. A Vrinter IIoiusu fur Eioo.l.r . 
 
 and a four foot slope in the rear. The glass should be run from the 
 eaves about six feet up the slope in front, and need not occupy 
 more than one-half the longitudinal space on the roof. See Fig. 11. 
 Ventilation should lead from out the floor up through the 
 peck, and will come up by the partition which separates the chicks 
 from the walk. The sashes should be so adjusted as to slide and 
 
—39— 
 
 give additional ventilation during extreme warm weather, and so 
 arranged that they can be operated upon from the walk. 
 
 Opinion is about equally divided as to the best and most 
 economical method of heating- a chicken houjc. Many prefer to 
 heat with hot-house boilers, running hot water through the whole 
 length of the building, and utilizing the heat from the floor and 
 return pipes as brooders for the chicks. There is no doubt but 
 that this system will work well, but it is too expensive for a man 
 with but little or no capital, as it will cost nearly as much as the 
 whole building. Nor is the first cost the whole expense attending 
 it; for if you have but fifty chicks, it necessitates heating the 
 whole building, whereas by the system of separate brooders in 
 each pen one cent's worth of oil will furnish heat for fifty chicks, so 
 that your expense can be exactly proportioned to the number of 
 chicks. Besides, a complement of brooders can be furnished at less 
 than one-fourth the cost of boiler and pipes. 
 
 The best time to hatch chicks for broilers is in January and 
 February; hold them until the ftrst of June or until just before the 
 price falls, getting all the weight on them you can. Good chicks 
 well cared for should weigh at four months old ten pounds per 
 pair. Chicks of that size will always sell much more readily than 
 smaller ones, and at better prices, as the market is always full of 
 the latter size. 
 
 I once got out some five hundred Brahma chicks in Januar3^ 
 They throve wonderfully, and the May following, when a little 
 more than four months old, weighed five pounds each. I tried 
 to sell them to a prominent dealer in Boston, but when I told 
 him their weight he was incredulous and said: " Early spring 
 chicks don't weigh ten pounds per pair in this part of the country;" 
 and offered me the going price for winter chicks. This did not 
 suit me. I afterwards sold the chicks alive at the door for some- 
 thing more than $4 per pair. This same man bought some of 
 them second handed, saying that they were the best chicks he 
 ever saw of their age. They must have cost the consumer pretty 
 high by the time they reached him. 
 
 It will readily be seen by this that the profits on one chick 
 got out in January or February are moro than the profits on five 
 chicks got out in June or July. Indeed no 'one can afford to 
 hatch chicks during the summer months, as the extreme heat will 
 reduce the size and vitality of chicks far more than the cold of 
 the early spring months. Then, as they are always sure to be off 
 condition, the price is always low, compared to the more robust 
 chicks got out earlier in the season. 
 
 Chicks hatched before the first of March should all be sold, 
 both pullets and crowers, otherwise the pullets will lay in July 
 and August and be in the fall the same as an old hen, and one 
 can hardly afford to keep a $2 pullet idle through the winter and 
 then sell her for less than half that sum in the spring. 
 
-40— 
 
 The proper time to hatch out Asiatics for winter layers is in 
 March and April, while the Leghorns and smaller breeds will do 
 as well in April and May and even the first of June. 
 
 During the months of January and February one machine 
 was run entirely on hens' eggs, and our buildings were filled with 
 chicks all intended for market. During March the machines are 
 run to their utmost capacity on ducks' eggs. During April, the 
 incubators are run largely on hens' eggs, to furnish store fowl 
 for winter laying. Then in May and June they are run entirely 
 on ducks. As fast as the spring broilers go to market, the 
 buildings are filled right up with young ducklings, and as dut-ks 
 will be as heavy at eight weeks old as a chick at eighteen 
 weeks, we can readily see that the one business does not neces- 
 sarily interfere with the other. 
 
—41- 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 RAISING EARLY DUCKS FOR MARKET. 
 
 AN EXCEEDINGLY PROFITABLE BRANCH OF POULTRY RAISING BUT 
 LITTLE KNOWN— DUCKS EASIER TO RAISE THAN CHICKS— TREAT- 
 MENT— FEED—TIME OF MARKETING— PRICES AND PROFITS— QUAL- 
 ITY OF THE FLESH-STORE DUCKS-MANAGEMENT OF HATCHES. 
 
 Brooders are especially convenient in growing ducks, as the 
 ducklings seldom need heat more than ten days. 
 
 The raising of ducks for market is a business which I sup- 
 plement to my chicken business. I find it, if anything, more 
 profitable than chicken raising, as the ducks can be hatched and 
 grown artificially with far less care and trouble, and with much 
 smaller percentage of loss, than Avhen grown under hens. 
 
 I have got out the present summer some three thousand 
 ducklings, and can truly say that from the first fifteen hundred, 
 I lost but one duck. 
 
 These ducks simply require water to drink, and are fed 
 nearly the same as chickens, except that they need rather more 
 animal food as they increase in size. They should be carefully 
 guarded from the rain for the first fortnight. They should also 
 be yarded while young, for, if allowed free range, they greedily 
 devour all manner of insects, which they do not stop to kill, and 
 too often pay the penalty with their lives Boiled potatoes and 
 vegetables should be fed freely at least once a day to young 
 ducks, which should have four meals each day until five weeks 
 old. Cracked corn and refuse wheat may be kept by them, but 
 while fattening they should have all the soft food they can eat at 
 least three times a day. 
 
 Ducks should be marketed at nine or ten weeks old, 
 as soon after that the pin feathers begin to grow and they are off 
 condition and soon become poor, while it is an immense job to 
 pick tliem. If not marketed at the time above mentioned, they 
 will not be in condition again till after they are four months old. 
 Pekiu ducks at nine weeks old, if well fed, will dress from eight 
 
to elexen pounds per pair. I obtained for the first lot sold this 
 season three dollars per pair. At present (June 15), the Boston 
 dealers return two dollars per pair. 
 
 An idea may be formed of the profits connected with the 
 business when a careful estimate places the cost of growing a 
 duck at less than twenty-six cents per head up to nine weeks old. 
 Ducks will stand close confinement far better than chicks, are 
 voracious eaters, and are not particular as to the quality; and to 
 my mind a pair of nicely roasted young ducks is excelled by 
 nothing in the poultry or game line, and is a dish fit for any 
 epicure. 
 
 Store ducks should be kept in a warm place and fed liberally 
 to induce early laying. The incubator should be filled with these 
 eggs as early in spring as may be, as the sooner the young duck- 
 lings are hatched the higher the prices obtained. Yet, unlike 
 chicks, they are very profitable when hatched out as late as the 
 first of August. I hatch most of my ducks in May and June, 
 when the hatch of chicks is concluded and the machines would 
 otherwise be idle. As fast as the spring broilers go to market, 
 the buildings are filled right up with ducklings. Xow as ducks 
 will be as heavy at eight weeks as chicks at eighteen weeks, it 
 will be readily seen that the one business does not necessarily in- 
 terfere with the other. 
 
 Up to the present time of writing (June 15), I have some 
 two thousand ducklings out. Quite a number of these ducklings 
 have already been marketed, dressing from ten to eleven pounds 
 per pair at nine weeks old. As these ducks bring thirty cents 
 per poimd at wholesale prices in Boston, and cost but five cents 
 per pound to grow them, it is easy to see that it is a paying busi- 
 ness. I do not lose more than one per cent of the ducklings 
 when they are properly cared for, my hatches running from 
 ninety to ninety-eight per cent of f ei-tile eggs. 
 
CHAPTER XT. 
 
 MAKKETIXG POULTRY, BUILD IX GS. SELEC- 
 TIOX OF STOCK FOWL. 
 
 DRV-PICKIXG VS. S C ALL IX G— PROPER DRE SSIXG— CAREFUL PACK- 
 IXG FOR MARKET— KILLISG AXB PICKIXG—LRE SSIXG DUCKS— 
 BUILDIXGS FOR POULTRY-PORTABLE HOUSES— THE LABOR QUES- 
 TIOX-VEXTILATIOX—GEXERAL DESIGX OF A PRACTICAL HOUSE— 
 SELECTIOXOF STOCK Fo^^'L-IX-AXD-IX BREEDIXG— THE AUTHORS' 
 METHOD. 
 
 MARKETING POULTKY. 
 
 This part of the busmess is a most important one, and when 
 well managed adds greatly to the yearly receipts. A lot of fowl 
 cleanly dressed and carefully packed will always command from 
 eight to ten per cent more than fowl in equally as good condition 
 but dressed in a slovenly manner, carelessly thrown into a box 
 with pin feathers sticking out here and there, the skin torn, and 
 sent to market in that condition. 
 
 Fowls for Boston market should always be dry picked, as 
 scalded poultry M-ill surely be cut from ten to twelve per cent. 
 For the New York market, it is immaterial, as other things being 
 the same, the price will not vary much between dry picked and the 
 scalded. In either case the fowls should be carefully packed, 
 breast down, and (if shipped any distance) ^^-ith layers of clean 
 straw between. Sometimes large-boned, loosely-built chicks that 
 are in really good condition, will not show for what they are 
 worth. In such a case the breast-bone may be broken down, just 
 after dressing, with a soft mallet, giving them a plumper, better 
 appearance, and making them better for purchaser and consumer. 
 
 Parties li^-ing at a distance from market will always find it 
 for their interest to ship their poultry in a fii'st-class condition. 
 Poultry should always be graded and that poorer in quality 
 shipped by itself. A few pair of fowls out of condition mixed 
 vrith a lot of first-class poultry, will often shrink the whole lot 
 
from two to three cents per pound, when the objectionable sold 
 by themselves would perhaps shrink no more. 
 
 A person by a strict attention to details in dressing and 
 shipping liis poultry will soon establish a first-class reputation 
 among the dealers, a thing which he can hardly afford to forfeit 
 just for want of a few moments' extra care. The writer has 
 marketed the present season, tons of poultry all of his own 
 growing and entirely to retailers, thus saving one profit. It was 
 a great gratification to him a day or two since to hear a promi- 
 nent Boston firm say, " We never order poultry elsewhere as long 
 as we can get it from you," and a member of another firm the 
 same day said, " Your poultry commands two cents per pound 
 more than that obtained elsewhere. We can get all the poultry 
 we want at two cents less than we pay you, but prefer yours at 
 the higher price." I always have more orders for my poultry 
 and eggs than I can possibly fill. I do not mention these facts 
 through any feeling of egotism, but simply to show that a great 
 part of the profits arising from the poultry business are secured 
 through the close attention to this part of the work. 
 
 The fowl should always be bled through the mouth. A 
 clean cut with a sharp pointed knife across the roof of the mouth 
 just below and under the eyes will do the business. A half-min- 
 ute will be all-sufficient to bleed, and when the bird begins to strug- 
 gle give it a smart blow on the back of the head and begin the 
 picking at once. A smart picker will have the feathers nearly all 
 off before the bird ceases to move. The ruling price in this vi- 
 cinity is three cents per head for dressing chicks and five cents 
 for ducks, and some pickers make from $3 to $o per day at these 
 prices. Ducks should be thrown into ice water as soon as picked, 
 and kept there till marketed. They do not require to be drawn. 
 The wing feathers from the outside joint, with the head, should 
 be left on. 
 
 POULTRY BUILDLNG8. 
 
 I am often asked to give a plan for practical poultry build- 
 ings. This is a very difficult thing to do because some people 
 want their buildings very ornamental, while others, whose purses 
 are lighter, want structures that are barely practical. Some have 
 plenty of room, and can colonize their fowl out in small or porta- 
 ble buildings, and give them plenty of range ; this, all things con- 
 sidered, is the best method. 
 
 Others still are limited for room and would like to know 
 how many fowl they can keep to advantage on a given area. 
 Now these different situations require differently constructed 
 buildings. 
 
 Then again the labor question as connected with the poultry 
 business, is one of the gravest import. It is now difficult to get 
 faithful, intelligent help. The old impression that boys and girls 
 and invalids are adapted to the care of poultry is fast wearing 
 away. The poultry business means long days, early work and 
 
-45— 
 
 late, and there is not only a large amount of drudgery connected 
 with it, but it is a work of detail, as well as requiring constant 
 vigilance and activity. 
 
 Hence, in all poultry establishments, got up with a view to 
 profit, the buildings should be constructed with a view to simpli- 
 fying the labor question and every facility allowed for cleaning 
 and purifying. The sanitary department comes first on the list, 
 for where poultry are reared on a large scale the predisposition 
 to vermin and disease is in exact ratio to the number kept. Es- 
 pecially is this the casa where the fowl are confined. 
 
 Ventilation shoidd always be from below, as this carries 
 away the cold air and foul gasses instead of the warm pure air of 
 the upper stratum. A person has only to pass through a build- 
 ing occupied by fowls and ventilated in either of the above ways 
 to satisfy himself of the utility of the bottom ventilation. 
 
 Where one is limited for space and large buildings are 
 necessary, undoubtedly a double roof building twenty-four feet 
 wide, with a four foot walk in the center, is the most convenient 
 and best. This building need not be mure than four feet high at 
 the sides, and can be of any required length. There should be a 
 pump connected with this aisle, and the fowl should all be fed 
 and watered from it. This reduces the labor and care to a mini- 
 mum. 
 
 By this arrangement an hour each morning and evening 
 would be all the time required to feed and water one thousand 
 fowls. Of course a building of this description one hundred feet 
 long would be ample accommodations for five hundred fowl. 
 Such a building need not cost over $275, but can be made to cost 
 twice that sum. The fowl should have access to small dust 
 rooms and the nests should be arranged so that the eggs can be 
 gathered from the walk. ,The whole thing should be got up 
 with a view to simplify the labor and sanitary departments, as con- 
 stant cleanliness is absolutely necessary to success. 
 
 SELECTION OF STOCK FOWL. 
 
 It has always been a pet theory of mine that only the very 
 choicest, either in the animal or vegetable kingdom should be re- 
 served for the reproduction of its species. Especially is this the 
 case with poultry, where deterioration is so great through natural 
 causes. 
 
 Many experienced poultry-growers maintain that it is abso- 
 lutely necessary to introduce foreign blood through a change of 
 cockerels, at least every second year, and every year would be 
 better. Others still assert that by a selection of the choicest 
 birds, even by constant inbreeding, the flock may be improved. 
 A series of careful experiments for the past ten years has con- 
 vinced me that the latter opinion is correct. 
 
 Of course it will be understood that the frequent interming- 
 ling of blood will be in inverse ratio to the number of fowl kept. 
 I eaiefuUy inspect every fowl of the thousands I raise, when kill- 
 
—46— 
 
 ing, and whenever I find a promising cockerel or drake that has 
 all the required points, and is unusually vigorous, he is thrown 
 into a yard by himself. The points of merit must be: Short, 
 yellow legs, standing wide, plump, heavy breast, clean cut head 
 with a bright eye ; and unusual vigor coupled with precocity. 
 This latter removes the only objectionable point in the Brahma 
 fowl, which I think, taken all in all, are the best for market pur- 
 poses and also for the first winter as layers. 
 
 In the fall, 1 sometimes have from sixty to seventy-five 
 cockerels carefully selected from many hundreds. These are 
 again examined and the number I require, some thirty-five or 
 forty, are taken out. Of the pullets and ducks, all objectionable 
 birds are culled out and sold to the carts. 
 
 I inbred in this manner for six years in succession, and my 
 fowls increased in size, vigor and in richness of plumage. My 
 Brahma pullets at the end of the fourth year of the experiment, 
 began laying at five months old, or as early as the Plymouth 
 Rocks, so that with me inbreeding has been a decided success. 
 
 A word here in regard to the profits of the poultry business: 
 A well managed poultry establishment should pay one hundred 
 per cent yearly on all the capital invested. 
 
_47— 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE DISEASES OF POULTRY. 
 
 PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE — DISINFECTANTS — EXTREME 
 CLE A NLINE SS — S YMP TOMS OF DISEASE — CONTA GION— USE OF 
 DOUGLAS' MIXTURE — ROUP — DIARRIICEA— CRAMP — BUMBLE-FOOT— 
 S CAL Y-LEGS— GAPES-FEA THER-EA TING—FO WL CHOLERA— LICE. 
 
 It is well for the amateur poulterer, who contemplates busi- 
 ness on a large scale, to know at the outset that the predisposi- 
 tion to vermin and disease among poultry is in exact ratio to the 
 number of fowl kept; and that nine out of ten of the diseases 
 to which poultry are subject are the direct result of neglect and 
 filth, and can be easily avoided by the use of disinfectants 
 coupled with extreme cleanliness and care. 
 
 It is far easier to anticipate diseases in poultry than to cure. 
 The careful expert can easily detect the symptoms as they appear. 
 The discolored excrements, dull and ruffled plumage, apparent 
 lassitude, want of appetite, pale comb and wattles, dull and lus- 
 terless eye, are to the expert sure premonition of what is to come. 
 
 The utmost vigilance is required and a constant supervision 
 of the different flocks. All sick and ailing fowl should at once 
 be removed, as many of the diseases to which fowl are subject 
 are of the most contagious nature. During the winter months, 
 and when fowl are confined, the Douglas' mixture should be 
 given them in their drink at least twice a week. This mixture 
 consists of half a pound of copperas and half an ounce of sul- 
 phuric acid to one gallon of water. One tablespoonful of this 
 solution or mixture is enough to one gallon of drinking water. 
 This mixture has a wonderful effect on the general health of the 
 fowl, when properly and regularly administered, and is besides a 
 good disinfectant. 
 
 ROUP. 
 
 This is a disease very prevalent among fowl, and in its in- 
 cipient stages sometimes makes its appearance in the form of a 
 
—48— 
 
 cold or slight catarrh. These troubles, if taken in time, are 
 easily removed, but, if neglected, often result in serious loss. 
 
 When fowl are contined in damp, filthy quarters, or when 
 cold drafts of air come in contact with the fowl, or when they 
 are kept in poorly ventilated buildings, roup is a frequent 
 visitor. 
 
 As this disease is very contagious, and oft^n fatal, the af- 
 fected fowl should be removed at once and placed in dry, warm 
 quarters. The diied mucous should be removed from the nos- 
 trils; the passage to the roof of the mouth thoroughly cleaned; 
 the head and throat bathed in kerosene twice each day. The 
 bird should be fed on stimulating and highly nutritious food. In 
 the latter stages of the disease, the discharges from the nostrils 
 become very offensive, the head begins to swell, and sometimes 
 one eye and occasionally both are closed. 
 
 All this can usually be prevented if the birds are taken in 
 time, but when in this condition must be fed by hand, with soft 
 food mixed thin with milk and a little red pepper dusted in. 
 Unless a fowl is very valuable the axe is the best remedy. 
 
 DIARRHCEA. 
 
 Dust a little powdered chalk and cayenne pepper into boiled 
 milk, feed on soft food, and withhold vegetables for a few days. 
 
 CRAMP. 
 
 This trouble, though usually attributed to damp quarters, 
 is, I think, mainly the result of too highly concentrated food, 
 coupled with too little exercise. Who ever saw chicks troubled 
 with cramp when allowed to run out of doors, even in warm 
 rain and dew, so long as they had plenty of grass and insects for 
 dessert and plenty of exercise to stimulate action in their digest- 
 ive organs? 
 
 On the contrary I was once called to a case where a man 
 had just lost two hundred fine chicks from this trouble, and three 
 hundred more a little younger were just coming down with it, 
 and this in a building the floor of which was made of dry boards 
 on which had been spread an inch of dry sand. A uniform tem- 
 perature of 70° had been preserved in the room night and day. 
 These chicks had been carefully shielded from dampness. This 
 was in March. 
 
 I told him to clear away the snow from his building in front, 
 turn his chicks out when pleasant, give them plenty of boiled po- 
 tatoes, chopped cabbage, feed on bread crumbs and baker's dust 
 mixed with sour milk with a little animal food, and report the 
 result to me. At the end of a fortnight a letter from him re- 
 ported two of the cases dead and the rest as lively as crickets, 
 every symptom of the disease having disappeared. 
 
 BUMBLE-FOOT. 
 
 This trouble usually confines itself to the Asiatics and heavier 
 breeds. When it first appears, the bird shonld be removed to 
 
—49— 
 
 dry quarters with clean straw. The skin over the inflamed part 
 should be shaved away a little, and caustic applied, which will 
 nearly reduce the swelling. If that fails and the swelling be- 
 comes large, soft, and full of pus, it should be opened, the pus 
 removed and the wound thoroughly washed out with warm water, 
 when it will usually heal. 
 
 SCALY LEGS. 
 This is also confined to the ^^.siatic breeds and is easily cured. 
 It is caused by a little parasite working itself into the interstices 
 between the scales on the legs. Carefully apply kerosene to the 
 affected parts, wipe off and rub in sulphur ointment. One appli- 
 cation will usually be enough. 
 
 GAPES. 
 
 This disease is caused by small worms or maggots accumu- 
 lating in the throat of the chick, and the disease is usually a den- 
 izen of damp, filthy quarters. The first thing is to thoroughly 
 clean and disinfect the buildings and yards. Put the affected 
 chicks into barrels and circulate dry air-slaked lime freely among 
 them. Inhaling this will cause them to cough and throw up the 
 worms. 
 
 FEATHER-EATING. 
 
 This is, I think, more an idle, vicious habit than a disease, 
 superinduced by idleness and close confinement, or possibly a 
 craving for animal food. Separate the offending bird, or the 
 feather-eating will become general. 
 
 CHOLERA. 
 
 This is a terrible scourge — the worst with which the poultry- 
 grower has to contend. It not only decimates but often des- 
 troys whole flocks. It is far more prevalent in the West and 
 South than in the East an'd North. There is no doubt but that 
 low, marshy grounds, and damp, filthy quarters will encourage 
 the disease and predispose fowl to its ravages. In careful ex- 
 periments by Prof. Pasteur of the London international medical 
 college, it was found that the blood, body and excrements of the 
 diseased fowl were filled with minute organisms. One drop of 
 this blood introduced into a little chicken soup will speedily af- 
 fect it in the same manner, and so on even to the hundredth de- 
 parture, and one drop of that last dilution is equally as deadly as 
 the original drop of blood from the diseased fowl. 
 
 The disease first makes its appearance in the urates, giving 
 them a yellowish cast. These discharges, as the disease ad- 
 vances, gradually become more frequent and copious, and the 
 bird becomes weaker, sometimes living several days, and often 
 dying in twenty-four hours. Fowl cholera is not only the most 
 fatal, but the most contagious of all poultry diseases. 
 
 Now as every part of these excrements are filled with the 
 microscopic life of the cholera, it will be seen how necessary it is 
 
 4 
 
—60— 
 
 to thoroughly clean and disinfect the building and confine the af- 
 fected fowl by themselves. 
 
 In an experiment some time since a number of diseased 
 fowl were confined by themselves, and fed on soft food into 
 which was mixed a small quantity of medicine composed of equal 
 parts of assafcetida, hypophosphate of soda and saffron, ground to- 
 
 f ether, a little cayenne pepper being sprinkled in the food also, 
 'he drinking water was treated with the Douglas' mixture. 
 Three-fourths of the fowl thus treated recovered. In another 
 lot, simply confined and fed without any treatment, the disease 
 proved fatal in every case. 
 
 The great point is to avoid contagion. Deodorize everything 
 m connection with the buildings and have all infected matter 
 burned. This alone will destroy the minute organism of fowl 
 cholera. 
 
 LICE. 
 
 This pest is a great trouble to the poultry grower, and needs 
 incessant vigilance on his part. There are two kinds of lice with 
 which he has to contend. 
 
 The larger or body lice finds its home among the feathers of 
 the fowl. iShe will usually rid herself of them when provided 
 with a proper dust bath. 
 
 The sma-Uer parasite, or the little red mite, is the most 
 troublesome. When once they have obtained possession the 
 only remedy is to fumigate thoroughly with burning brimstone. 
 No living thing can withstand that. Then white-wash the whole 
 inside of the building. 
 
 As in everything else, so here, a little prevention is worth a 
 great deal of cure. These little mites originate on the perches, 
 and are never on the fowls' body except to feed. Judging from 
 sad experience, they have astonishing facilities for the reproduc- 
 tion of their species. The power of becoming great-grandfathers 
 within twenty-four hours makes lively work for the poulterer as 
 well as the old hen. 
 
 It is easy to avoid the red mites when you know how. Pro- 
 cure for perches planed spruce joists, two by three inches in size, 
 and as long as required. Cover them with hot coal tar, and you 
 will have no lice for at least one year. I have perches that were 
 so painted three years ago ; they have been in constant use ever 
 since, and there has been neither tar or lice on them since. 
 Every one knows that this tar is an oderiferous compound. It 
 is excessively obnoxious to the lice. They will thrive and multi- 
 ply daily in all manner of filth and offensive matter, but coal tar 
 is beyond them. It costs a cent and a half per gallon. Every 
 breeder of fowl should liave a barrel of it on hand. This tar, be- 
 fore it is applied, should be boiled, and then a thin coat applied. 
 It will then harden when it cools and will not tarnish the fowl. 
 
—51-^ 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 THE PROS AND CONS OF 
 
 ARTIFICIAL POULTBY- RAISIJSTG. 
 
 HOME-MADE INCUBATORS M^ BROODERS. 
 
 BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 CHAP TUB XVIL 
 
 AGRICULTURAL EDITOR VISITS MR. RANKIN-HIS METHODS 
 D BUILDINGS— PROFITS OF ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION— ARTIFI- 
 lAL VS. NATURAL HATCHING IMPARTIALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 A visit to Mr. Rankiu's farm is especially interesting at this 
 time, May 1. He is running four incubators, mostly on cluck 
 eggs. The day we were there a splendid hatch came out — three 
 hundred and sixty-four ducklings out of three hundred and sev- 
 enty-eight fertile eggs. Duck eggs generate more animal heat 
 than hens' eggs and require more frequent spraying with water to 
 cool them. This adds to the moisture also, which is a great es- 
 sential in artificial hatching. Ducks grow much faster than 
 chicks and if well fed will weigh ten pounds per pair at seven 
 weeks old. Exclusive of the eggs, their cost at that age need 
 not exceed twenty cents each for feed, and the average net profit 
 is a clean dollar apiece. 
 
 Mr, Rankin uses Pekin ducks, but is to try the Aylesbury 
 breed that is so popular in the London market. The Aylesbury is 
 more fully breasted and makes a better appearance in market. There 
 
is a rapidly increasing demand for ducks, since people are discover- 
 ing that roast duck is better than the most delicate chicken. Ducks 
 sold all last year at one to two cents per pound above the price of 
 chicks, starting at fifty cents per pound for early ducks and run- 
 ning down to eighteen cents as the season waned. It is also to 
 be remembered that ducks are sold " green," that is, they are not 
 drawn but merely bled, whereas chicks are sold on dressed 
 weight. The young ducks will lay on flesh faster and do better 
 every M^ay if not allowed to see water at all. Curiously enough, 
 hawks won't touch ducklings, though hawks are a serious pest to 
 the chicken yard. 
 
 The ducklings are fed on shorts, meal, scalded meat scraps, 
 butter-milk, skimmed milk, etc. They require much more food 
 than chicks, especially more animal food. A Cayuga drake crossed 
 upon Pekin ducks produces a desirable market bird. Mr. Rankin 
 is raising ducks for market extensively, having about eight hun- 
 dred hatched already and three incubators full (four hundred 
 eggs each) yet to come. It is more profitable to hatch the ducks 
 for market than to sell the eggs for 61.50 per dozen, at least in 
 the early part of the season. A flock of ducks are kept over to 
 lay eggs another year. It is found that if these old ducks are 
 confined and well fed their eggs are very much larger than if al- 
 lowed full range in the swamp. 
 
 While the old birds will take care of themselves largely if 
 allowed to range, it is a fact that the ducklings are much hardier 
 and more easy to raise than chicks. In fact, Mr. Rankin does 
 not lose one per cent of the ducks hatched. This is another 
 strong point in favor of dixcks. Like chicks they do better when 
 colonized in small houses or brooders than where kept in large 
 flocks. 
 
 Persons wishing to start in the business of raising ducks can 
 do so to the best advantage and the least expense by setting the 
 eggs in summer when they are cheap, and raise the ducks for an 
 egg supply the next season. As with chicks, the earlier the hatch 
 in spring, provided they do well and thrive (which depends on 
 intelligent care), the greater the profit. Herein is the profitable- 
 ness of artificial hatching, which enables one to get birds to mar- 
 ket at almost any season and in larger numbers than would be 
 possible by the natural method. 
 
 MR. Rankin's buildings 
 are the common nine feet wide house, six feet high in front and 
 four and one-half feet in the rear, though the pitch of the roof 
 need not be over fourteen inches. The Standard Roofing adver- 
 tised by A. F. Swan, 46 Cortlandt street, New York, is used. 
 The cost of these houses is $1.25 to $1.50 per running foot. 
 They are better than more expensive houses. The roosts are 
 along the back-side, with a wide board beneath catching the drop- 
 pings. Underneath this board are the nests, whicli the hens enter 
 from the rear. They are closed in front so that the hen lays in 
 
—58— 
 
 darkness and is not liable to acquire the bad egg-eating habit. 
 The front of the nests has a hinged door through which the eggs 
 can be gathered. Wire netting bought for one cent per square 
 foot from Peter Duryee & Co., 215 Greenwich street, N. Y., is con- 
 sidered the best and cheapest f encing,as well as the most convenient. 
 
 AS TO THE FEED. 
 
 The poultry raisers of all this section feed skim-milk and 
 butter-milk largely. They buy at C. Brigham & Co.'s creamery 
 in Boston, paying three and four cents per gallon. The cost of 
 freight is only twent3^-six cents per barrel additional, the railroad 
 carrying in the empty barrel and returning it filled for this sum. 
 
 Charles O. Tribou, of Brockton, formerly worked in the shoe 
 shops there and made good wages, but commenced in the poultry 
 business in a small way two or three years ago with such success 
 that this year he attends to nothing else. His incubator hatched 
 seventy-five to ninety per cent of the fertile eggs, and he has al- 
 ready over twelve hundred chicks with as many more to come. He 
 has tried making a house entirely of Standaid three-ply roofing, 
 but so much studding has to be used that he has decided it would 
 be about as cheap to construct entirely of boards, using the roof- 
 ing only on the roof. 
 
 MORE MONEY IS PROBABLY MADE 
 
 in the hen business — eggs and fowl for market, not for sale to 
 breeders at fancy prices — by Mr. E. Damon than by any other 
 man in New England — on an equal number of hens. He aver- 
 ages to keep eight hundred to one thousand hens per year on about 
 eight acres,the profit averaging .1^1. 50 from each above every item of 
 expense. He has done this for ten or twelve years. He runs 
 two incubators and had twenty-five hundred chicks out when we 
 were there, and hadn't but just commenced. He employs one 
 man and runs the hens in connection with a cider and vinegar 
 business and other work. He says two men devoting their time 
 wholly to poultry can care for four thousand fowls, Mr. Da- 
 mon's principal fowl house is 12x36 feet. Two winters ago he 
 kept two hundred and twenty-five hens in a house 26x80 feet and 
 got an average of one hundred and eight dozen eggs per week 
 for eight weeks without permitting the hens to step outside the 
 house. One day the two hundred and twenty-five hens laid two 
 hundred and five eggs. This is an unparalleled record. He 
 feeds a great deal of shorts, cracked corn, wheat, etc., mixed 
 with skim-milk and pigs' liver cooked and given warm. 
 
 A cross of three-fourths Plymouth Rocks and one-fourth 
 Light Brahma is his favorite strain for both eggs and market 
 poultry. A Light Brahma and Leghorn cross produces great 
 layers. Last year he caponized one hundred and fifty cockerels 
 but it didn't pay for the bother. A good deal of theoretical 
 writing is printed about capons, but Mr. Damon does not believe 
 there is any practical profit or advantage in them. 
 
 The chicks are removed from the incubator, when well dried 
 
off, to the " chicken factory," a house 25x50 feet with six feet 
 posts and four wiu clows on each side. In cold weather this is 
 heated by a stove. Pens on each side contain brooders of Mr. 
 Rankin's pattern — a boiler in the bottom heated by a lamp at the 
 end. The boiler is covered with dry sand, upon which the chicks 
 huddle. This gives better satisfaction than to have the heat 
 above by arranging a boiler to have chicks run under it. The 
 building is well ventilated. 
 
 Mr. Damon is a firm believer in the improved incubator. 
 He would use it for raising fancy breeding stock. He is confi- 
 dent artificially reared fowl have as much constitution and do 
 as well, if not better, in every way, than those naturally raised. 
 He showed us a flock of eighty fowl, procured of Mr. Rankin last 
 fall, that have averaged sixty eggs per day all winter. Not a 
 single hen has died or been indisposed, but they are all bright, 
 thrifty and healthy, and will weigh eight to ten pounds. Not 
 only were they hatched in incubators and never knew the loving 
 care of an old biddy, but their parents, grandparents azid four or 
 five generations preceeding theui had known none but artificial 
 care. 
 
 Charles Alford is also very successful in artificial raising of 
 poultry, so much so that an offer of SIOOO a year and perquisites 
 to run an artificial poultry raising establishment for another 
 party wasn't any inducement. He allows his chicks to run out 
 doors till cold weather, never has the roup or other hen troubles 
 in his flock, and raises such stock that his eggs are in great de- 
 mand. 
 
 ARTIFICIAL VS. NATURAL HATCHING. 
 
 A thorough and unprejudiced investigation shows that the 
 artificial method of hatching possesses the great advantage of 
 producing chicks free from vermin, and therefore to all appear- 
 ances strong and healthJ^ With an incubator that will hatch 
 seventy-five per cent and upwards of fertile eggs, far more chicks 
 can be produced in much less time and less expense than by the 
 natural way. It is not as much work to care for one hundred 
 chicks hatched by an incubator and all kept in one brooder as it is 
 to care for an equal number in charge of hens. Give the former 
 as much room and care as the latter and they will do as well. 
 The great trouble of many who go into the artificial way of rais- 
 ing poultry is that they crowd the chicks too much, often giving 
 one hundred no more room than an old hen and her little flock are 
 allowed. While experienced, practical men have demonstrated 
 that chicks can be successfully raised in small quarters, it is 
 worse than useless for the novice to undertake it. 
 
 The laying qualities of the artificially raised fowl will com- 
 pare favorably with those raised by the natural method. Mr. 
 Rankin has for many years surpassed his neighbors in egg pro- 
 duction. Mr. Damon's flock, above referred to, which has been 
 one of the most productive on record, was not only raised artifi- 
 
—56— 
 
 cially, but its ancestors for half a dozen generations had been 
 hatched in incubators and reared in brooders. Certainly no 
 stronger test could be made of constitution and strength so far as 
 egg production and thrift of the fowl is concerned, for a health- 
 ier looking flock is seldom seen. We wish also to record the fact 
 that not a single ailing chick was noticed among the four thous- 
 and or more artificially hatched chickens seen on the trip, notwith- 
 standing a rain storm, had preceded our visit. It should also be 
 stated that our visit was totally unexpected where most of these 
 chicks were ssen, so that the owners had no opportunity to hide 
 any diseased chicks had there been any cause or inclination for 
 so doing. 
 
 The chicks hatched by hens at Mr. Damon's were in no wise 
 superior to those hatched in incubators; if anything the compari- 
 son was in favor of the latter, though as they were of differ- 
 ent ages we could not accurately compare them. The only point 
 on which there appears to be any doubt is whether thoroughbred 
 fowl artificially raised will possess the perfection of markings 
 and the strength of constitution to transmit those markings equal 
 to the naturally raised bird. This is a fine point of interest to 
 breeders of fancy poultry only. For all practical purposes the 
 experience of the gentlemen mentioned above and of others in 
 their vicinity presents strong ai-guments in favor of artificial incu- 
 bation. While the great majority of hatching machines are at 
 present very defective, it is evident that great progress has been 
 made when seventy-five to ninety-eight per cent of fertile eggs 
 are hatched. We are convinced that despite the well founded 
 prejudice against it, artificial incubation is in its infancv and that 
 the time will come when reliable hatching machines will bo used 
 by every poulterer and sold at prices within the reach of all. 
 
—56— 
 
 CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 PJW AA'B COX— MR. HAWKIN.S' OPIMON—NATURAL V.S. ARTIFICIALLY 
 INCUBATED CHICKS. 
 
 We have given our own opinion of natural versus artificial in- 
 cubation in the preceeding chapter. It is needless to remark that 
 the many failures in artificial incubation have created a prejudice 
 against the system which later success is slow to counteract. 
 Even Mr. A. C. Hawkins, the well known breeder, has expressed 
 this opinion of incubators, in an address before the Massachusetts 
 state board of agriculture in December, 1884: 
 
 " Now a word in regard to the use of artificial incubators by 
 the farmer. Some of yoii, perhaps, may have used them, and, as 
 you think, successfully. I have tried them for several years, 
 having used all the best machines, and I would not take the best 
 one that is manufactured to-day as a pi'esent, if I was obliged to 
 use it myself. Chickens hatched by the hen are much stronger, 
 larger, and finer in plumage ; there is as much difference between 
 artificially produced chickens and natural ones as there is between 
 Jersey butter and oleomargarine. Nature does her work per- 
 fectly when she has proper opportunity. Many will ask how 
 they are going to hatch chickens by the thousand? Just as I 
 have told you how to hatch them by hundreds. You must keep 
 more fowl and there will be abundance of sitters at the prop- 
 er season. I have probably hatched and raised more chickens 
 during the last six years than any other breeder, and the incuba- 
 tor has hindered more than it has aided me. I have had hatched 
 on my place, in one week, over fifteen hundred chickens, all with 
 hens. That is fast enough. I have probably spent more than two 
 thousand dollars trying to convince mj'self that artificial chicken 
 production was a benefit to me, but after the long struggle I 
 haven't an incubator on my place ; still the chickens hatch and 
 grow." 
 
 This brought out a discussion on the question in The New 
 England Homestead in which Mr. Hawkins was asked to ex- 
 plain how the manner of hatching a chick, (either naturally or ar- 
 tificially), is to influence the plumage. He thus replied: 
 
 "Any person who will give this question careful thought can 
 plainly understand why the conditions through which a chicken 
 passes before hatching should have as much or even more influ- 
 ence on its appearance at maturity than the condition which it 
 
—57— 
 
 undergoes after incubation. Any practical poultry breeder, who 
 has tried to hatch and raise chickens artificially, knows that they 
 mature smaller and that the plumage has not the perfection of 
 markings as do those hatched and reared by hens, the eggs being 
 from the same flock under the same conditions. Knowing the re- 
 sult which is sure to come, let us look for the cause. 
 
 " Manufacturers of incubators claim they imitate nature per- 
 fectly in the construction of their various machines. The ques- 
 tion is. Do they? I have had on my place and tested carefully 
 one of the best incubators manufactured. To overcome the dry- 
 ness of the heat in the machine, they place pans filled with water 
 upon hot pipes beneath the egg drawers. There is a constant 
 steam rising from these pans of water upon the eggs above. I 
 will ask anyone if these eggs are receiving the same amount of 
 moisture or the same kind of moisture that they receive when 
 nature is doing the work, or in other words, when a hen is sitting 
 upon a nest of eggs under a bush or shed? Is the heat adminis- 
 tered to those eggs the same as that coming from the hen? Do 
 the manufacturers know that the heat and moisture is right? No. 
 In proof of tliis, when the chicks began to hatch on the twentieth 
 day, a large part of them would pip the shell, and the inner mem- 
 brane of the shell would quickly dry, and the chick from its 
 weakness caused by three weeks of unnatural life did not have 
 the strength to break out from the shell but died in the attempt. 
 Others that were incased in weaker shells, or that had been less 
 affected by improper moisture or heat, or had been in a location 
 where the ventilation was more perfect, would hatch out — some to 
 die young, some to come to maturity in an imperfect state in size, 
 form or plumage. 
 
 " I have placed five hundred eggs in this incubator and five 
 hundred under hens at the same time, and when they hatched all 
 were placed with hens and given the same food and care. I 
 raised ninety-five per cent of those hatched by hens and lost 
 ninety per cent of those from the incubator, from no other reason 
 than that the former were subjected to nature's heat, moisture 
 and ventilation during incubation, and the latter were the pro- 
 duct of an imperfect art. If the organs of the body are nurtured 
 by these imperfect conditions during their growth, they cannot 
 and will not perform the functions for which they were intended 
 in a perfect manner. As the flesh and plumage of the fowl are 
 products from the blood, if the organs of circulation and diges- 
 tion are imperfect, so will the plumage be affected by unnatural 
 conditions during incubation." 
 
 The side of the incubators was vigorously supported by the 
 successful experience of others. One correspondent had had 
 especially good success with the very machine Mr. Hawkins par- 
 ticularly condemned. A. F. Williams, a Connecticut breeder, 
 wrote : 
 
 "In my own mind it is a settled fact that artificial hatching 
 can be done with more success than with hens. I last season 
 
—58-- 
 
 placed some five hundred eggs under hens and in an incubator. 
 They were as near alike as possible under all circumstances. The 
 hens hatched sixty per cent and the incubator seventy-five per 
 cent of the eggs. The temperature under a hen must vary more 
 than in an incubator, but I think good ventilation is very necessary 
 in the latter — not in direct contact with the eggs, but so they will 
 have the benefit of the air. Eggs want airing every day. This 
 is more necessary during the second and third week ; at first 
 they do not require it so much. Fifteen minutes to half an hour's 
 ventilation is sufficient according to the weather. Do not let the 
 temperature get below 70° 
 
 Another thing : Which io the cheaper way and the least 
 worr}^, — to spend fifteen minutes tending an incubator, or go once 
 an hour to see whether your eight or ten hens are on the nest or 
 have concluded to retire from the incubating business ? Or per- 
 haps they think that in order to get up the necessary degree of 
 heat it will require at least two or three hens on a nest. Or per- 
 haps they think they need a little egg omelet or scrambled egg, 
 and jump on the eggs. If they can't accomplish it that way 
 they stick their toe-nails into and through the shells, and behold 
 they find it so much to their idea that the whole flock gather round 
 and partake of the feast. Then if the hens sit well and begin to 
 hatch, just at this time they feel their need of fresh meat, and 
 commence on the poor chicks, which fall victims as fast as they 
 hatch. " Choose ye this day whom ye will serve," the incubator 
 or the hen. 
 
 I have not said anything about the expense of feed for these 
 same eight or ten hens for three weeks. Look at W. C. Baker 
 of New Jersey, who keeps White Leghorns and Hambiirgs and 
 hatches some twenty-five thousand chicks a year artificially, and 
 others who hatch their thousands of chicks. 
 
 I have had chicks larger at ten days in a brooder than at 
 three weeks old with a hen. The idea is, that chicks can run in 
 and get brooded when they want to ; they will learn this very 
 quickly and are not dependent on the old hens' notions. Then 
 perhaps they get fed oftener in the brooder, which m«kes them 
 grow faster. If you do not believe this, just try feeding them a 
 little once an hour, keep in a warm place with a brooder, give 
 some dry sand to scratch in, and von can fairly see them grow." 
 
 We have given space thus liberally to this point, 
 because of the popular ignorance and prejudice respecting 
 it. The American Poultry Yard, of June 27, 1885 treats the subject 
 in a way worthy of insertion here: 
 
 "The past season has marked a great advance in artificial 
 hatcliing. A great many lessons have been learned which will 
 be of value for next year's piactical work. The question is 
 not as to the possibility of artificial hatching — tliat was long ago 
 settled. Proprietors of immense establishments for the produc- 
 tion of poultry have availed themselves of other means than the 
 
—59— 
 
 hen-matli3rs to such an extent as t^ demonstrate the practicabili- 
 ty of thus producing chickens. But there is a great question 
 still unsettled in ihe minds of many breeders who do only a mod- 
 erate amount of business, hatching say a few hundred chicks eacli 
 season. Doubtless every such man has asked himself many a 
 time : " Can I obtain a machine of proper size for doing my 
 work, which I can afford to buy ; which will give me nearly or 
 q.ute as good returns as I would receive from eggs set under 
 hsns ; one not too complicated in its construction or too delicate in 
 its m magemen: ? " And when the question is asked of us we do 
 not hesitate to answer in the affirmative. There are just such 
 machines made ; they are advertised in our columns. If you 
 propose to buy, select the machiiie as you would any other mer- 
 chandise — by personal inspection where it is possible, receiving 
 from ths maker full instructions and explanations as to its pe- 
 culiarities and treatment. Where this is not possible, order the 
 incubator from a maker of good repute, and expect to serve a 
 term of apprenticeship before setting up as a finished master of 
 the art of artificial hatching. 
 
 Right here is where most of the trouble comes. Common 
 sense should teach any man that unless a, machine is a perfect au- 
 tomaton, its use must be learned before the best results can be 
 secured. Yet, ju Iging from the complaints from time to time 
 put forth, not a few breeders who have never seen an incubator 
 order one, fill it with eggs as soon as it can be set up, and if the 
 first batch is in any way a failure a storm of wrath bursts upon 
 the devoted head of the maker, and the hatcher is offered for sale 
 at a great sacrifice. 
 
 Really, now, isn't this about the long and short of the whole 
 matter? Half the people who write letters to the poultry jour- 
 nals decrying incubators; talk as though the machine ought to be 
 an exception to all the rules of human experience. Such persons, 
 springing upon a bicycle for the first time, would expect to ride 
 with the most skillful, and only discover their mistake after a 
 few tumbles in the diit. Experience may be costly sometimes, 
 but it must be had, audits teachings are always the most valuable. 
 This is the way it happened to one of our friends the present sea- 
 son : He bought a well-known hatcher, filled it with eggs 
 bought from the best breeders at heroic prices, and waited the 
 result. For a time all seemed to go well, and the exact number 
 of chickens he was sure of hatching was freely proclaimed among 
 his friends. In an evil hour the regulator failed to work, and 
 the heat went away tip towards the boiling point. But our 
 friend went to work, with less enthusiasm, it is true, refilled the 
 incubator with less expensive eggs, kept his wits about him, de- 
 monstrated the reliability of the machine when properly man- 
 agcid, and would not now be without one. The man who is wil- 
 ling to learn to manage one will succeed with any of the standard 
 makes. The man who is not willing to do so had better stick to 
 the old hen of thirteen-egg capacity. 
 
—60— 
 
 Another Massachusetts poulterer writes regarding his ex- 
 perience with a machine, that Mr. Hawkins condemned: 
 
 " Three years ago this spring I furnished a man in Hudson 
 with three hundred and sixty eggs, the capacity of the incubator, 
 and paid him $10 to run it for me. The result was three hundred 
 good strong chicks. I brought them nine miles in a wagon to my 
 home. And at night placed them under hens that I had ready, 
 which had been sitting a short time. The next day I put them 
 in coops, twenty-five chicks to a hen. They grew fast and were 
 as smart as any I ever had hatched by hens. Out of the three 
 hundred chicks ninety-five per cent lived, and were as strong, 
 finely marked cockerels and pullets as I ever raised. This was 
 the Perfect Hatcher, an incubator that Mr. Hawkins had tried 
 and condemned. I have bred one variety of poultry for thirteen 
 years, and my experience has been that if a flock of hens have an 
 unlimited range and good young cockerels to run with them and 
 the eggs are not over one week old when used, they will hatch 
 just as well in a good incubator as under a hen. I have engaged 
 parties to hatch for me this spring, although with a different ma- 
 chine of a capacity of five hundred and eighty eggs. I feel con- 
 fident of a good hatch and shall have no trouble with sitting hens 
 and broken eggs." — [F. A. Houghton, Worcester County, Mass. 
 
—61— 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MR, RANKIN'S EARLY EXPERIENCE. 
 
 AS WRITTEN FOR THE NE W ENGLAND HOMESTEAD, AND FOR FARM 
 AND HOME— A PROFIT OF SEVEN DOLLARS PER HEN— EXTRAVA- 
 GANT FACTS BACKED UP BY EXPERIENCE— SUPERIORITY OF THE 
 ARTIFICIAL OVER THE NATURAL METHOD OF GROWING POULTRY— 
 THE SYSTEM IN CONNECTION WITH OTHER FARM WORK. 
 
 In August, 1883, Mr. Rankin wrote a long article for The 
 New England Homestead and for Farm and Home, in 
 which he briefly narrated his experience with incubators. This 
 article attracted instant and widespread attention, and was copied 
 into almost every agricultural and poultry journal in the country. 
 We print it here as a matter of important interest. 
 
 I have been engaged in the poultry business from my youth, 
 and have ever found it the most profitable branch of farming. 
 Much more profitable than ever before has it been since I com- 
 menced hatching and growing poultry artificially. 
 
 I have endeavored as near as possible to reduce the thing to 
 a system. I never keep a hen after she is a year old, for the 
 reason that biddy never lays as many eggs the second year as she 
 does the first. Besides an old hen invariably molts in the fall, 
 and does not recover plumage in time to furnish eggs to meet 
 the high prices, or get out chicks for early spring broilers. 
 
 My main object has ever been to make eggs and get out 
 chicks to meet the highest prices in the market. In order to do 
 this, a stock of early pullets are absolutely necessary to furnish 
 eggs at the right time. During the last winter and spring I have 
 hatched out some three hundred chicks. A large proportion of 
 them were sold during the months of May and June at prices 
 varying from $1 to ^2.50 each, one lot of one hundred and fifty 
 selling at forty-five cents per pound live weight at the door. 
 
 I will give an item of my experience, during the past winter, 
 
—62— 
 
 and the reader can judge for himself of the profits of growing 
 poultry artificially. 
 
 I took from one of my small incubators, one hundred and 
 thirty chicks and put them in a brooder and cared for them 
 through the winter. When four months old, May 25th, those 
 chicks sold for enough to cover the cost of growing them and the 
 original cost of both incubator and brooder, leaving a clear profit 
 of more thah SlOO besides. Of course the incubator and brooder 
 were put right to work domg the same thing over again a second, 
 third, and fourth time during the same season. I will now give 
 you a copy of my balance sheet for 1881 and 1882 : 
 
 Stock on hand Sept. 1, 1881 : 
 138 pullets at Sl.25 each, ----- S172.50 
 
 Supplies and food of all kinds, _ - - - 3^7.83 
 
 35 gallons kerosene oil at eight cents, - - 2.80 
 
 $ 513.13 
 
 Stock on hand Sept. 1, 1882. 
 
 314 puUets at 1.25 each, 392.50 
 
 813| dozen eggs sold, ------ 274.55 
 
 137 fowls sold, - - 136.23 
 
 571 chicks sold, 631.24 
 
 1444.52 
 
 Balance (net.) 931.39 
 
 This balance on the right side of S931.39, is a net profit of 
 nearly $7 on each pullet with which the year commenced. Of 
 course everyone knows that this is a showing which would be 
 simply impossible without artificial incubation. 
 
 I have not given these items to air my own theory and prac- 
 tice, but to demonstrate the superiority of the artificial over the 
 natural method of growing poultry. The one can no more com- 
 pete with the other than can hand work compete with that of 
 machinery in our large manufacturing establishments. It en- 
 ables persons of limited means and narrow quarters to do a much 
 larger business than by the old method. He can grow two crops 
 on the same ground in one season, for the high priced spring 
 chicks are out of the way in time to occupy the buildings and 
 grounds with store fowl for winter layers. There is not the least 
 doubt but that -within a very few years every farmer or grower 
 of poultry will have his incubator and brooder, and get out his 
 chicks when they wall make him the best returns. 
 
 My chicken buildings are from sixty to seventy-five feet 
 long, fronting the south. They are nine feet wide, with a slight- 
 ly inclined shed roof covered with tin. There is a window in 
 front, for every eight feet longitudinally. These windows all 
 have close shutters to prevent extreme cold dnring the nights in 
 winter. The b. ooders are kept in these buildings during the 
 winter months, -< nd the young chicks are put in when hatched 
 and dried off. 
 
 The chicks are fed for the first forty-eight hours on hard- 
 boiled eggs chopped fijie. After that they are fed on dough 
 
—65— 
 
 made of three parts of Indian meal and one part of wheat mid- 
 dlings, and largely with cracked corn and wheat as they grow 
 older. The young chicks are kept clean and warm, fed freely on 
 vegetables and given plenty of exercise. Every person should 
 understand that the sanitary arrangements of poultry yards and 
 buildings are even more essential than the amount or quality of 
 feed. 
 
 I do not make a specialty of growing poultry. It is simply 
 in connection with and supplementary to other farm work. My 
 principal business is making milk and growing fruit and truck 
 for market. What I have accomplished is nothing more than 
 any other farmer can do to a greater or less extent according to 
 his location and circumstances. The question is often asked, " If 
 every body goes into the poultry business will it not glut the 
 market and cease to pay ? " When poultry ceases to be a luxury 
 and is as common an article of diet on every workingman's table 
 as beef and pork, it will be time ta talk of glutting the market, 
 and even then poultry can be grown at a profit. 
 
 One word in regard to incubators. There seems to be a 
 great distrust of incubators by poultry men at large. This is 
 not strange, for there arc so many worthless machines in the 
 market wliich hatch well on paper but whose onlj' mission seems 
 to be to disappoint their purchasers and addle his eggs, that it 
 has made people skeptical. There arc thousands of good practi- 
 cal men in the country to-day who say that artificial incubation is 
 not and can never be made a success. I run two machines. I 
 will give you the record of the larger one : During the four win- 
 ter and spring months I have taken out of that nuichine some 
 two thousand chicles. It holds five hundred eggs and part of the 
 time was not running at its full capacity for want of buildings to 
 accommodate the young chicks. This machine has always hatched 
 a larger percentage of the eggs, than my best hens. It is per- 
 fectly automatic in its action, so much so that it has run a week 
 at a time without varying more than one degree in heat. During 
 this time it lias been in the care of different persons. All the 
 care that is required is to turn the eggs and trim the lights. 
 
 T do not wish to see a hen around in any other capacity than 
 that of an egg producer." 
 
CHAPTER XX, 
 
 SUCCESS WITH HOME-MADE MACHINES, 
 
 JIOME-MADE INCUBATORS-THEIR SUCCESSFUL USE IN NEW JER- 
 SEY— DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAKING THIS AND OTHER 
 MACHINES— A pS INCUBATOR THAT DOES THE WORK OF A pOO AP- 
 PARATUS—A GOOD AND CHEAP BROODER-HOW MADE— THE CARE 
 OF THE INCUBATORS, BROODERS AND CHICKS— PROFITS OF THE 
 SYSTEM. 
 
 The poulterers of Burlington county, New Jersey, for a 
 few years past have been having great success in the use of an 
 incubator that can be made for twenty-five dollars, and will hold 
 three hundred eggs each, with brooders that cost only six dollars 
 each and will shelter one hundred chicks. These machines are 
 used with as much satisfaction and profit as are the patent ma- 
 chines costing four times as much, if we may judge from the testi- 
 mony of those who have used them. The description and detailed 
 
 instructions for making this incubator have never before been 
 published. The apparatus is not patented and none of its 
 
—65— 
 
 parts conflict with existing patents. The inventor has described it 
 exchisively for this work, as follows : 
 
 " A reliable and cheap incubator, holding three hundred eggs, 
 may be made in the following manner: 
 
 Fig. 1 gives an idea of what is to be made. This incubator 
 is simply an egg-drawer placed between a heater and ventilator 
 box, all three being completely surrounded by an outer box or 
 case holding saw-dust to enclose and retain the heat. A side sec- 
 tional view showing the internal arrangement and construction 
 is shown in Fig. 2. 
 
 Use well seasoned matched wlrite pine boards one inch in 
 
 'f:^' 
 
 oLm' 
 
 t^ ^ ^^^ 
 
 ^ 0. "• ^-^ * 
 
 '4^ ^^ 
 
 Lour <Lc^ iJi. -t d^r^t^ -Cc*^ 
 
 thickness, for all parts except the sides and ends of the egg- 
 drawer, which should be a quarter of an inch heavier. 
 
 THE HEATER 
 
 Is made first and is shown in Fig. 3. It is three by four feet and 
 six inches high. It takes two boards six inches \vide and four feet 
 long ; and two boards six iiiches wide and two feet ten inches long 
 for the sides; the top being made of matched boards nailed on 
 
 very tightly, and has seven holes bored in it. The center hole is 
 for a three-eighth inch bolt seven inches long, with a large, flat 
 head on one end and a thumb-screw on the other. The other 
 holes are for six escape pipes, which are fifteen inches long and 
 three-fourths of an inch in diameter. Bore three holes on each 
 side three inches from the outside edges of the sides; the first, 
 
 5 
 
—66— 
 
 three inches from the comer; the second fifteen inches from the 
 corner; the third twenty-seven inches from the corner. 
 
 Now cut two holes, eight inches from opposite corners (one 
 is shown in the drawing), in the center of the sides, and four 
 inches in diameter; and over both the inside and outside tack 
 stout pieces of tin containing round holes two and one-half inches 
 in diameter. These holes are for the lamp pipes, and the tin pro- 
 tects the wood from'fire. Directly under each of these holes in- 
 side, nail a piece of tin a foot square, putting it half an inch from 
 the bottom, bending down the two corners not nailed half an mch. 
 When the zinc is nailed on, this will make two thicknesses with 
 half an inch air space, and \Adll prevent over-heating below the 
 lamp pipes. Use stout zinc for covering the bottom, with a hole 
 for the bolt in the center of it. Nail it on with double rows of 
 lath nails, and it will be air tight. Put the bolt in and tighten 
 up the thumb screw. 
 
 THE DRAWER, 
 
 Fig. 4, is five inches deep in front, four feet nine inches long, and 
 two feet eleven one-half wide. After saving a space in front, 
 eight inches wide, for saw dust, take a piece of heavy, coarse 
 muslin or tow, and stretch tightly over the bottom and fasten 
 
 
 %- 
 
 with tacks. Nail a board nine inches wide under the front space 
 for saw-dust, but cover the other parts ynth. slats, one inch square, 
 nailing them on crosswise through the two and place them about 
 an inch apart. 
 
 A very convenient and complete egg-turner may be made by 
 making a frame with beveled cross-slats. This should be three 
 inches shorter than the drawer, and just wide enough to slide 
 nicely. The sides of the frame should be seven-eighths by three- 
 eighths of an inch; the ends, seven-eighths square. The slats are 
 seven-eighths of an inch high and one-half an inch across the 
 bottom, and'are one and seven-eighths inches apart at the top. It 
 
—67— 
 
 is well to put the rows two inches apart for extra large eggs or 
 duck or turkey eggs. By moving or sliding this frame back and 
 forth, the eggs turn very nicely. 
 
 THE VENTILATOR BOX 
 
 With the bottom of the incubator, is represented standing upright 
 in Fig. 5. The box proper is three by four feet, the same as the 
 heater, but eight inches high. By noticing the drawing, it will be 
 perceived that the bottom of the incubator is eight inches larger 
 every way than the ventilator box, and that the same matched 
 boards answer for both. The twelve half-inch holes are for 
 twelve tin pipes to furnish ventilation from below. These pipes 
 
 are eight inches long. The sides of the ventilator box extend out 
 even with the bottom of the incubator for the drawer to slide on. 
 
 Having made this, place the drawer on it, and the heater on 
 the drawer, and fasten the heater and ventilator together with 
 boards nailed on the sides and back. The boards should be one 
 foot wide, and be nailed so as to allow the drawer to work nicely 
 between the heater and ventilator. These boards on the sides 
 must project the same at the front as do the sides of the ventila- 
 tor. Next fit an eight-in^h board over the front of the drawer, 
 keeping it level with the zhic. This keeps the saw-dust from 
 falling into the drawer. 
 
 Now with the bottom as a guide, build the outer box for saw- 
 dust, making it nine inches higher than the bottom of the heater, 
 and taking care to fit the front boards around the end of the 
 drawer nicely. To allow the lamp pipes to enter, cut holes in 
 the outer box the same as was done in the heater, but using tins 
 on the outside only. Where the lamp pipes pass through the 
 saw-dust, a box for sand must be made of sufficient size to prop- 
 erly protect the saw-dust. The tinsmith must make the lamp 
 and escape pipes, as stovepipe is made, but the ventilator pipes 
 may be soldered, as they are in no danger of melting. The es- 
 cape pipes must be cut off so as to come to a point, so that when 
 
—68- 
 
 they are pushed down and touch the zinc only a small draft is al- 
 lowed, and the draft can not become closed. 
 
 THE LAMP PIPES 
 
 Should be two and one-half inches in diameter, with an elbow in 
 the middle allowing the pipe to enter the heater three inches at 
 one end, and to fit a tin chimney with an isinglass window in it 
 one inch in diameter at the other end. A large fount lamp with 
 a No. 2 burner is placed on a slide that can be pushed under the 
 incubator (as shown in Fig. 1), when removed for trimming. 
 
 The legs and handle are shown on the front of the drawer. 
 
 and can readily be made from looking at the drawing. The legs 
 hold up the drawer when drawn out, and the handle is merely a 
 cross piece fastened to them. The legs are three inches below 
 the bottom of the incubator, and they just clear the floor wUen 
 the incv\bator is on two pieces of scantling to allow air to pass up 
 tlirough the pipes. 
 
 AFTER SETTING THE INCUBATOR 
 
 in the place where it is to be used, put sand in the boxes around 
 the lamp pipes, and put saw-dust in the ventilator-box up to with- 
 in one inch of the top of the pipes ; also in front of the drawer 
 and all around the sides, and on top of the heater up to within an 
 inch of the top of the escape pipes, being careful not to allow any 
 saw-dast to get in the pipes. Cover the saw-dust with paper, al- 
 lowing the pipes to be open. 
 
 You are now ready to light the lamps. Use head light oil 
 (150° test), keep the lamps at a medium height and in a few 
 days you will have the incubator thoroughly heated. By observ- 
 ing the two good thermometers in the front and back ends of the 
 drawer you can easily keep the temperature at 103° by turning 
 the lamp screw up or down. When you have the machine under 
 proper control, put the eggs in, and in about twelve hours they 
 will be warm enough without turning up the lamps, and they will 
 remain so unless the lamps are changed when filled and trimmed. 
 
 By trimming every other day and filling daily, the tempera- 
 
— (>9— 
 
 ture can easily be kept uniform by looking at the thermometers 
 every six hours and turning the lamps up or down. From 102° 
 to 105° is the proper temperature. Good, reliable thermometers 
 must be used and the bulbs should rest on the eggs with the top 
 slightly elevated. 
 
 Turn the eggs three times a day when you look at the ther- 
 mometer. The eggs should be marked so that you can see at a 
 glance if they are perfectly turned. This is best done by putting 
 a particular mark on each side of every egg, so that all the marks 
 will be readily seen to be alike after turning. 
 
 AFTER THE EGGS HAVE BEEN IN THREE DAYS 
 
 place four shallow pans of water on the saw-dust under the egg 
 drawer, two in front and two at the back and never let them get 
 empty. The moisture from these pans is sufficient until the 
 eighth day, when a little warm water should be sprinkled over 
 the eggs once a day, until the twelfth day, when two sprinklings 
 will be needed until the fifteenth day. After that three sprink- 
 lings daily is given until hatching. During hatching a thin hot 
 cloth may be put over the eggs, if the chicks seem inclined to 
 stick to the shells. 
 
 After being in the machine five days all infertile eggs may 
 readily be told by examining them with a tester. A good tester 
 is made by placing a lamp in a pasteboard box with a hole in the 
 top for the escape of the smoke and one in the side opposite the 
 light against which to place the egg. The testing must be done 
 in a dark room, and the hole against which the egg is held should 
 be covered with cloth on the edges to perfectly shut out the light. 
 All clear eggs are infertile and only those with dark or clouded 
 places in them contain germs. The infertile eggs are excellent 
 food for young chicks, and should be boiled for half an hour 
 and put away in a dry place until they arc needed. 
 
 After the eggs are pipped, do not use the turner to turn 
 them, but keep all the pipped ones turned up or at the side ; and 
 examine the others occasionally, so that all may have pips up to 
 prevent smothering. The chicks will come out themselves and 
 should not be helped except in extreme cases. After the chicks 
 are nicely dried off and are able to walk about, they must be re- 
 moved from the drawer to baskets and when about a day old 
 placed under the brooder and fed. Keep the shells removed from 
 the drawer and avoid opening too frequently or for long periods. 
 
 THE BROODER, 
 
 Like the incubator, has a heater which is four feet long, one foot 
 wide and six inches high. The top is covered with zinc nailed 
 on tightly. There is no bottom except over one-third of the back 
 end. The front has a sliding door with a window to look at the 
 lamp. The inside of the sides are lined with tin, and the chimney 
 hole is one inch from the bottom in the middle of the back, and 
 is for a tin pipe one and three-eighths inches in diameter. The 
 
—70— 
 
 heater is shown m Fig. 6, givmg a bottom view without the 
 sliding door in front, and with boards one foot wide nailed on the 
 top through the zinc. 
 
 Fig. 7 gives a top view of the same after strips two mches 
 wide have been fitted in at each end of the zinc to make a level 
 surface all around the edge. Before the strips, also two inches 
 wide, have been nailed all around the edge, except to a, which is 
 an opening one and one-half inches wide to admit fresh air ; h is 
 a strip ten inches long nailed on to conduct the fresh air to the 
 zinc. 
 
 Now if this is covered with matched boards there will be a 
 warm fresh-air chamber two inches deep over the zinc and one 
 inch elsewhere. Bore a hole in the centre for a pipe three inches 
 long and one and one-eighth in diameter. Around this pipe on 
 this floor the chicks keep warm. They sleep under a cover, also 
 made of matched boards, two inches smaller every way than the 
 floor. This cover has four round legs which go through holes 
 and raise and lower by m?aiis of nails, used as pegs in the stay 
 pieces. Around the edge of the cover, hang down tack carpet or 
 blanket cut in slits every four inches so that the chicks may run 
 in and out. The blanket should be four inches wide and the 
 cover kept two and one-half inches from the floor, when the 
 chicks are first put in the brooder. The warm a,ir is thus con- 
 stantly flowing over their backs and ventilation is perfect. A tin 
 chimney twenty inches long will carry off the fumes from the 
 lamp. 
 
 Put the brooder under a warm, sunny shed, and set it in the 
 ground, or bank up nearly level with the floor and make a pit 
 for the lamp with an open cover. Be careful not to cover the 
 hole where the fresh air enters the brooder. A brooder house 
 may be made of hotbed sash for 812 large enough for three 
 brooders and three hundred chicks. Place the lamp as far under 
 as you can reach, using straight tin chimneys with isinglass 
 windows in them. The same kind of lamps and oil should be 
 used as directed for the incubator. The lamp need not be turned 
 up high, nor must the chimney be nearer the zinc than two inches, 
 8° is warm enough for them. No thermometer need be used in 
 the brooder. Keep dry sand on the floor and clean off the drop- 
 pings every morning. Let their run be small at first and do not 
 let them out when young in damp or stormy weather. 
 
 Feed them in troughs with covers which will only permit 
 them to stick their heads in. This will save feed and keep the 
 feed clean. Feed every three hours and only as much as they 
 will eat up clean. Their first feed should be hard boiled eggs 
 chopped fine and bread crumbs wxt with milk. After a few days 
 scalded Indian meal or cracked corn may be given, as well as a 
 little green food. Onions chopped fine are very good mixed with 
 the feed. A little red pepper sprinkled on their food occasion- 
 ally gives them an appetite. 
 
 If at first the chicks do not use the brooder they have to be 
 
—71— 
 
 put under it and looked after. Generally they are very little 
 trouble after the first half day. One hundred is enough for one 
 brooder. 
 
 By varying their food, giving them plenty of milk and keep- 
 ing clean water by them all the time, as well as having regard to 
 cleanliness and ventilation, any one v>dll succeed in rearing broil- 
 ers in nine or ten weeks. 
 
 Thousands of broilers are being raised every year with these 
 incubators and brooders with great profit and much more satis- 
 faction than by hens. Any one who tries rearing poiiltry Ity ar- 
 tificial means must attend to his business, and remember that 
 failure in all avocations is generally caused by inattention much 
 more frequently than b}' anything else. 
 
 The most profitable time to sell poultry is in April. Oper- 
 ations should therefore be commenced in January. If care is 
 taken to use good eggs and they are turned and sprinkled as di- 
 rected, success in hatching is assured. A uniform heat of 103° is 
 best, but slight variation in temperature for short periods do not 
 injure the eggs. Do not keep the brooder too .warm nor allow 
 the lamps to get empty. Feed regularly, and keep the chicks 
 dry and clean, and in well ventilated quarters they vdll grow, 
 and be a source of great profit as well as pleasure. 
 
 The expensive buildings, and patent, high-priced incubators 
 and brooders may do for those who raise poultry for pleasure 
 rather than profit, and have plenty of money ; but convenient sub- 
 stantial brooder houses and an incubator like many of us are 
 using, involves but little outlay for the profit received. 
 
 To operate an incubator successfully is not an arduous task, 
 nor is there mucli trouble attending it. The lamps have been 
 filled and lighted a few days before you wish to place the eggs 
 in the drawer, and having- the machine running at a temperature 
 ranging from 103° to 105°, the work of marking three hundred 
 eggs so that you will know that they are all properly turned at a 
 glance, when you slide tlie turner, is about the same work as 
 marking the same number for nests. To place them in a drawer, 
 between the slats of the turner, is much less trouble, and much 
 more pleasant than carrying them out of doors to twenty differ- 
 ent places in each of which a suitable nest must be made. There 
 are a few easy but important labors to be attended to daily and 
 at regular times, such as attending to the lamps, turning the eggs 
 with the turner, and looking at the thermometers four times a day, 
 sprinkling the eggs at certain periods and airing them ; the eggs 
 should be tested once in order to save the infertile ones for feed 
 for the young chicks. During the time for hatching, the incuba- 
 tor, like the hens, needs more attention, as the egg-shells and dry 
 chicks must be taken out, and the pipped eggs kept turned so 
 that the pip is up, and the chick will not smother. This work all 
 being in the house, is very easily attended to by a person of ordi- 
 nary intelligence and judgment, with more satisfactory results 
 than often obtained from an incubator having clock work, batter- 
 
—72— 
 
 ies, thermostatic bars, mercurial Ijalaiices, aucl other delicate con- 
 trivances intended to make it self-reg-ulating*. 
 
 An incubator can be used at any time, but hens only sit 
 when they get ready. The proper time to commence using one is 
 in January, not later than the middle of the month, so as to have 
 the chicks reared by the first ot May. As a rule, most hens 
 want to sit in April or May and their broods are not often sold 
 till fall or winter. To attend to sitting hens is often a trouble- 
 some task. Some are disturbed by rats, and have to be moved to 
 better quarters, which are not always acceptable, for they go back 
 to their old nests when they leave their eggs for food and exer- 
 cise ; the eggs get spoiled, unless you fasten the bird in, and then 
 you have to put her off and on every day. Others sometimes 
 leave their nests, the eggs get cold, the germ dies and they will 
 not hatch. If you find their eggs before it is too late, you must 
 either put them under another hen that may happen to want to 
 sit, or else divide them among those who now have full nests, or 
 ought to have, unless some heavy hens have broken some of their 
 eggs, in which cai?e the nests have to be cleaned out, fresh straw 
 put in, the smeared eggs washed off with warm water, or else the 
 nests will smell badly and the chicks die in the shells for want of 
 air. 
 
 One hen is as well satisfied sitting on a rotten or a china egg 
 in the nest box, as if on a full nest. She has to be moved, 
 fastened in, and put on and off her nest every day, the same as 
 other hens tliat are driven off by laying hens. The hens are 
 troubled with lice sometimes, and will leave their nests unless at- 
 tended to, while the laying hens break eggs by crowding on the 
 nests with the sitters, and have their eggs spoiled if not hunted 
 out in time. Some of the hens hatch well, some poorly, and 
 some fail to hatch an egg. To go around to the different nests, 
 throw out the shells and take in the chickens several times a day, 
 requires much time and gives much annoyance. Many eggs get 
 smashed after being pipped, chicks are trampled to death, some 
 hens leave their nests with one or two chicks, and tuose eggs 
 which are pipped as well as the rest are ruined. 
 
 None of these things bother one in running an incubator. 
 
 But the trouble does not end here. After selecting, as y^u 
 think, good, careful mothers and have them in the coops, you 
 find that some hens will peck and kill all tiie black chicks. 
 Others will do the same with the white ones, while others trample 
 them and eat up all the best food. You try other mothers for 
 them with more satisfactory results. To visit these coops several 
 times a day and feed and water them, as well as occasionally 
 clean out or move the coops, is quite a job, particularly after 
 they are allowed to run, and you want to fasten them up for the 
 night. You never have this trouble with brooders. 
 
 Incubators will generally hatch better than hens during the 
 winter season. From three hundred eggs it is (|uite common to 
 
—73— 
 
 hatch five-sixths of the fertile ones, frequently more, and occa- 
 sionally less. 
 
 To take the motherless little creatures out of doors, and in- 
 troduce them to their foster mothers, when about a day old, is a 
 pleasant and interesting task. By looking after them occasion- 
 ally, they soon become accustomed to the brooders, running in 
 and out really as contented and happy as if they had a live 
 mother who clucked to them, instead of a silent, inanimate contri- 
 vance made of zinc, wood, and a strip of blanket. 
 
 It being natural or instinctive for young chicks to eat, the 
 same as other very young animals, they do not require any hens 
 to call and teach them, much less, eat up a large portion of their 
 best food, consisting of hard-boiled infertile eggs, oat meal raw 
 or cooked, broken rice, meat and other things which will make 
 them grow much more rapidly than a diet exclusively of cracked 
 corn or meal, such as is generally thrown in the coops or feeding 
 places on dirty boards, or on the ground, much of which gets 
 wasted or else is unfit to be eaten. 
 
 To feed the little fellows with the most economy as well as 
 satisfaction, covered troughs should be used for food and drink 
 to prevent waste as well as preserve cleanliness, not only of food, 
 but of themselves, thereby promoting vigorous health and allow- 
 ing a rapid growth, until al)out the first of May, when they are 
 fit to be killed, and readily sold at a high price. 
 
 It is much cheaper to use brooders than to take up the time 
 of the hens, when they might be laying eggs enough to pay a 
 large part of the expenses. The cost of running a brooder is less 
 than two cents a day for oil, as very little heat is required — not 
 over eighty degrees after the first few days. 
 
 In brooders the chicks are never troubled with lice, never 
 get trampled or pecked to death by careless or cross hens ; they 
 are always dry and warm, no matter what kind of weather there 
 is ; they are easil;y kept clean, with a few minutes labor each day, 
 by cleaning off the floor where they stand and saving their drop- 
 pings, and, besides all these things, they are healthier and strong- 
 er and grow more rapidly than with hens. 
 
 My experience in using these brooders has been such that I 
 consider them preferable to hens in every respect, as a much 
 larger percentage of the chicks can be raised and with less 
 trouble and more profit. 
 
 Those who have never seen chicks raised by brooders, have 
 no idea how easily one can take care of several hundred, or how 
 quickl}^ they grow and become a source of great profit. They 
 need attention, it is true ; but that attention must be given at 
 the right time, and in the proper manner, the same as you must 
 attend to anything else in order to be successful. 
 
 PROFITS. 
 
 To estimate the profits of poultry-raising from results fre- 
 quently obtained from actual trial and experimenc, is just as 
 proper ?vs to estimate profits on new grapes, berries, fruit, or 
 
—74— 
 
 anything else. The following statement concerning the results 
 of raising poultry artificially, is based on the practical experience, 
 not only of myself, but of many others who have given this busi- 
 ness a fair trial. 
 
 By using one incubator holding three hundred eggs, four 
 hatches can be secured by the middle of April, if operations are 
 commenced in January. During that time with proper care, 
 there can be hatched from twelve hundred eggs, which have been 
 carefully gathered from good, healthy hens, at least nine hun- 
 dred chicks. With six brooders, in warm, sunny sheds, with 
 sash fronts and proper attention, eight hundred of these can be 
 raised to weigh one and a half or two pounds each in ten or 
 twelve weeks. By the last week in April the first lot is ready 
 for market ; three weeks after the second hatch is fit, and by the 
 last of June both the third and fourth hatches are ready and sold. 
 The first killing will bring from sixty-five to seventy-five cents a 
 pound, the eight hundred chicks weighing twelve hundred pounds, 
 will bring 8600. 
 
 Those who have kept a careful account assert that it costs 
 but ten cents to feed a chicken ten weeks, when it will weigh 
 from one and a half to two pounds. The expenses for every 
 thing attending the four hatches are as follows : 
 
 1 incubator, holding 300 eggs, ----- $2.5.00 
 
 6 brooders at $6 each, ------ 36.00 
 
 1200 eggs, at an average of 2c each, - - - - 24.00 
 
 Feed for 800 chicks at 10c each, - _ _ - 80.00 
 
 Oil for incubators and brooders, _ _ _ _ 4,00 
 
 Total expense, 8169.00 
 
 Being a profit of 8431.00, calling the gross proceeds S600, as 
 above stated. 
 
 One person can successfully manage three such incubators 
 and the necessary brooders, by having a handy half-grown boy to 
 assist in the less important work, and have a profit of over $1200 
 on broiling chickens alone, besides paying for the incubators and 
 brooders, which can be used to raise fall and winter chickens in 
 large numbers, much more cheaply and with greater profit than 
 those who, at this time, the middle of April, are only commenc- 
 ing business by setting their hens. 
 
 Those who keep pure, new or fancy poultry, and sell the 
 eggs as well as the fowls, will find incubators invaluable. With 
 them, the stock can be rapidly increased early in the season, be- 
 fore there is any demand for eggs, and thereby obtain earlier 
 layers, and finer exhibition stock. 
 
 Any one who takes pleasure in raising chickens, for either 
 the fall or spring market, and understands how to manage them 
 properly, by using incubators or brooders, the profits can readily 
 he doubled, with half the labor. 
 
 In several years' experience with incubators, I never have 
 had a poorer hatch than sixty per cent of the fertile eggs, and 
 
—76— 
 
 have had as high as ninety per cent to live, but generally only 
 about eighty per cent. This last is better than is generally ac- 
 complished with hens. The chicks I have hatched always come 
 out strong and healthy, and grew as well as any I ever had 
 hatched by the natural process. 
 
 Those who have heard that incubators are not reliable, or 
 that the chickens can not be raised without hens, because they 
 are puny and unhealthy when hatched, before believing such re- 
 ports had better visit some grower of poultry by the artificial 
 system, and see for themselves what large and fine lots some of 
 them have before hens generally want to sit. 
 
 If you desire to try this artificial method, procure a good in- 
 cubator, use good eggs, run it with care, provide suitable sheds 
 or houses for brooders which warm the chicks as nearly like a 
 hen as possible, have proper ventilation, keep the chicks dry and 
 clean, and feed frequently on a varied diet, and you will be suc- 
 cessful. 
 
—76— 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 MORE H0ME'3IADE INCUBATORS AND 
 BROODERS. 
 
 ANOTHER GOOD AND CHEAP MACHINE— ONE THAT CAN BE MADE 
 FOR gi20 AS GOOD AS A $200 INCUBATOR-DETAILS OF CONSTRUC 
 TION-BROODERS— THEIR CONSTRUCTION AND USE. 
 
 A correspondent of the Indiana Farmer gives the following 
 description of a home-made incubator which he claims to have 
 used with practical success: 
 
 "The great drawback to most incubators, is their extreme 
 high price, and their complicated construction. I have examined 
 nearly all of the best machines, and those meriting the most 
 praise are either so costly as to be out of reach of the gener- 
 al public, or so complicated as not to be understood and conse- 
 quently soon get out of repair and are cast aside and condemned. 
 The requisite beyond all other with successful machines, is uni- 
 ft^rmity of temperature. Next is moisture and ventilation. With 
 these three ends attained, eggs can be hatched with little or no 
 difficulty. Bearing this in mind, and also the cheapness of the 
 material employed in the construction of even the most expensive 
 of these devices, the question very naturally arises: "Why 
 would I pay two or three hundred dollars for a machine that I 
 can make for fifteen or twenty dollars without infringing on any- 
 body's patent ? " Any individual Avith ordinary ingenuity can 
 with the plans and instructions herewith given, construct a ma- 
 chine that will hatch on an average eighty-five per cent of all the 
 healthy eggs put in it. It is not best to make them too small, as it 
 requires more attention to regulate the temperature or heat in a 
 small machine, than a large oue ; and again, a oue-thousaud-egg 
 machine can be made very nearly as cheaply as one holding half 
 that number. The plans submitted here, are for an egg incuba- 
 tor. Those persons who are not accustomed to using a soldering 
 iron and tinner's scissorsj will probably find it best to have the 
 
—77— 
 
 tank and lamp made by a tinner ; and if desired, you may se- 
 cure a better result in the wood work, by employing the services 
 of a carpenter. 
 
 To give an idea of the general outward appearance of the 
 machine, I might say that it looks very much like a carpenter's 
 tool chest, if the latter was placed on legs eighteen inches high. 
 It should be made of one inch poplar or pine lumber (seasoned) 
 with double walls leaving an interspace of one and one-half 
 inches to be tightly filled with sawdust. A very convenient size 
 and holding about one tliousand eggs, is five feet long (outside), 
 two feet and eleven inches wide and about two feet eight inches 
 deep. 
 
 The legs should be three inches in diameter where they en- 
 ter the machine and half this at the lower end. The required 
 degree of heat is maintained by means of hot water in four 
 broad flat tanks ; one over each egg-tray ; the water being kept 
 warm by the heat of two coal oil lamps under the lower tank. 
 As the water circulates freely from one tank to another, a uni- 
 formity of heat is also secured. The smoke from the lamp passes 
 upward through the flues and does not come in contact with 
 the eggs. The lamp flues are two tin tubes, one and one-fourth 
 inch in diameter, passing from the lamp-box outward to the 
 wall of the incubator, thence upward through the sawdust, and 
 should project above the top of the machine about six inches ; 
 they should also have a slight enlargement in the tube just be- 
 fore they pass through the lid in order to produce a draft. 
 
 There should be sufficient room between the top of the upper 
 tank and the under surface of the box, to admit of the thermome- 
 ter lying under the little glass door with a small piece of cloth 
 or wood under it. I would also suggest, that the wood-work be 
 put together with screws, "so that it may be more easily taken 
 apart should any trouble occur from insufficient ventilation, leak- 
 ing of the tank or other cause. The apertures for ventilation 
 should be one inch in diameter, and should have tin tubes fitted 
 in them, corresponding in length with the width or thickness of 
 the walls. They should be arranged to close externally with 
 small wooden buttons, constructed to slide over them. The glass 
 over the thermometer should be fitted tightly into the lower side 
 of the upper wall with putty, and the little door over it, made to 
 fit closely in its place. 
 
 There should be a section cut out of the centre of the floor, 
 fifteen inches long by eight in width, to receive the lamp-box ; 
 the lamp-box will be fifteen inches long, eight inches wide and 
 twelve inches deep ; fitting closely to the under side of the tank ; 
 having a door on one side its full length, and one or more venti- 
 lators as may be required. The lamp should be a square cor- 
 nered box, twelve inches long, five inches wide by one and one- 
 half inches in depth ; should be made of tin, with an ordinary 
 lamp-burner soldered on the top near each end ; should have a 
 
_78— 
 
 one-fourth inch tube passing from the lamp-chamber outward 
 through the wall of the lamp-box, so that the lamp may be filled 
 from the outside. 
 
 The water-gauge is a tin tube, one inch in diameter, with a 
 small strip of glass covering and forming its upper side ; the tube 
 being on a level with, and passing into the upper tank near its 
 surface ; this allows the water to run out into the tube ; and the 
 depth of the water can be seen through the glass. The large 
 door at the end of the machine should fit snugly and nicely, and 
 if necessary, small strips of cloth may be tacked on its edges to 
 insure a more perfect fit. The inside door containing the glass 
 should also admit as little air as possible and should hang on 
 hinges. There should also be two or more ventilators in the rear 
 end of tlie machine. 
 
 The tanks which should be made of sheet zinc, or some other 
 material impervious to rust, should be four and one-half feet in 
 length, two and one-fourth feet in width, by three inches in 
 thickness. They should be connected by an upright tank of the 
 same width and thickness, in the rear end of the machine, which 
 in a four-tank machine should be two feet high. There should 
 be a strip of heavy copper in the centre of the bottom of the 
 lower tank, as the heat of two lamps would soon burn a hole in the 
 zinc ; this strip should correspond in width and thickness with 
 the lamp-box. The space between the tanks should be at least 
 four inches and five would be still better. Strips of heavy zinc or 
 other metal should be soldered on each side of the tanks near the 
 forward end, as supports. There should be a stop-cock in the 
 front end of the lower tank, to draw off the water when desired. 
 There should be two open tubes passing down into the upper tank, 
 so that the air may escape through one as the water is entering 
 the other. That end of the tube fastened to the tank, should not 
 project more than three-fourths of an inch, so that after the tank 
 is put in they may be passed through the walls and fitted on 
 from the outside. 
 
 The egg-tray should correspond in length and width with 
 the horizontal tanks ; and should be at least two inches deep in- 
 ternally. The compartments should be about three inches 
 square, and lined on the sides with heavy canton flannel, 
 pasted on with glue ; this prevents injury to the eggs by rolling 
 against the sides of the tray when turning the eggs over. The 
 sides should be of one-inch lumber and the partitions of one-half 
 inch. The top and bottom of these trays shovild be just 
 alike, and should be a frame on hinges covered with open wire 
 gauze or netting ; the wire being of some material that will not 
 rust — the apertures in this netting should not be large enough to 
 allow the feet of the chicken to become entangled when hatched. 
 
 The vapor pans are small, shallow zinc trays two and one- 
 fourth feet in length, four inches in width, by three-fourths of an 
 inch in depth ; three to be placed on each tank, one in the middle 
 and one at each end. These pans are intended to contain water, 
 
—79— 
 
 the vaporizatiou of which, from the heat of the tanks, will pro- 
 duce sufficient moisture for the supply of the eggs, and without 
 which the eggs would dry up. The machine should be filled with 
 water previously heated to the proper degree and the heat regu- 
 lated before the eggs are put in. The temperature can be suc- 
 cessfully controlled by keeping the lamps at one height and by 
 watching the thermometer closely until the heat becomes regular. 
 If you desire an " electric " regulator go to any electrician and 
 procure an ordinary thermostat, which you can correct with a 
 valve to open and close as the temperature gets too high or low, 
 or with a bell to ring from the same cause ; the entire electric 
 apparatus will cost you only about ^3. 
 
 The eggs should be turned every six hours by withirawing 
 the tray and returning it the other side up. The objection 
 urged by some incubator men to macliines having one tray over 
 the other, is entirely unfounded, and is based on a desire to find 
 some fault with every one else's invention but their own. The 
 tanks, however, should be far enough apart so that the eggs will be 
 hatched by the heat from the tank above it, rather than that be- 
 low, as the germ floats on top of the egg and this is the part of it 
 that requires the heat. Keep the temperature as near 103° or 
 104° Fahr., as possible. Use fresh fertile eggs and keep the ven- 
 tilators open, and your success is assured. 
 
—80— 
 
 BROODERS.^ 
 
 D. D. Briggs, of Los Gatos, Cal., who has been very success- 
 ful in artificial poultry raising, writes : 
 
 I have been led after six years of experience, four of them 
 practical, to the adoption of the following plans : 1 divide the 
 life of a chick into three parts or grades : First — the first seven 
 days after hatching, second — the next fourteen days, third — the 
 intervals elapsing until they go onto the perches. 
 
 For the first grade I have devised and constructed a brooder, 
 six feet across the front, four feet in depth, and six feet in height. 
 The walls are of common rough lumber and battened ; the roof 
 is made of shakes and has a sharp pitch each way, the gables 
 closed with grain sacks for better ventilation. There are set in 
 
 Fig. 19. 
 
 the front three sash doors 24 by 30 inches each, and made to 
 swing outward for convenience in getting to the chicks. 
 
 About one-half of the interior is floored and sanded. Six in- 
 ches below the sash doors, a solid door is hung to admit of light- 
 ing the lamp, etc. There are three compartments, separated one 
 from the other by means of wire cloth or netting, about eighteen 
 inches high from front to rear, and situated in front of the 
 mother, with height sufficient to permit the ready egress and in- 
 gress of the chicks. Siicli a house as described can be built at a 
 cost not exceeding .^6.50. The material employed consists of 
 one hundred and fifty feet of lumber, four pairs of strap hinges, 
 three sashes, fifty shakes, and two pounds of nails. As soon as 
 the chicks are dry I place them in this brooder, in the sun if it is 
 shining brightly, if not, then they are placed with the mother, 
 taking care to provide a shady retreat which the chicks will seek 
 if it should become too warm. 
 
 With the sun obscured, and in need of warmth, they will 
 seek the mother when near at hand. At times the little ones 
 
—81 — 
 
 will persist in remaining out all day and so getting cold. A very- 
 good remedy for this is to cover the glass with something dark to 
 convey to them an idea that night is approaching. As soon as 
 they have learned to seek their resting places for the night with- 
 out prompting, usually in about a week, I put them in a larger 
 brooder with larger runs, and only twenty-live together, giving 
 them plenty of light and ventilating much the same as in the 
 first instance. Here they remain for two weeks longer before 
 being allowed their entire freedom. 
 
 If you want the chicks to feather early keep them quite 
 warm. When transferred from brooder No. 2 to No. 3, they 
 may be allowed a limited out-door range if not too cold. Until 
 well feathered I never allow them out in early morning or in 
 rainy weather. The feed for the first week is hard boiled eggs 
 and dry cracked wheat, water provided should be clean and pure. 
 The wheat is continued for the second and third weeks with let- 
 tuce added. When they begin to run out, soft feed of bran and 
 middlings should be given sparingly at first, using only clear wa- 
 ter in mixing. 
 
 To provide the artificial heat necessary several devices have 
 l^een employed ; perhaps none better than the artificial mother il- 
 lustrated above. This may be made of any capacity required ; 
 a very convenient size is one that will accommodate fifty chickens 
 until three months old. Two feet wide and four feet long ; the 
 sides are twelve inches high under the glass, sloping to three in- 
 ches at the back ; the cover of the back or inclined part should 
 be movable, and lined with sheepskin or with pieces of fiannel cut 
 into strips three inches wide, and tacked to the under surface of 
 the lid so as to hang down lengthwise with the lid ; from the high- 
 est part of the lid should hang a curtain made of flannel, all 
 across the box, and to within half an inch of the floor ; this keeps 
 the cold air out of their I'oosting place. The front half of the 
 brooder is covered with four panes of glass, this admits the sun. 
 The black dots in each peak are intended to represent one-inch 
 holes for ventilation. 
 
 An ordinary stone gallon jug (placed beneath the lid) filled 
 with hot water four or five times a day, will furnish all the heat 
 
 Fig. 20. 
 necessary. Feed little and often, and a variety for the first few 
 days, the yolk of hard boiled eggs, then coarse Indian meal 
 
 6 
 
—82— 
 
 scalded or baked, occasionally onions, cabbage or meat chopped 
 very fine ; after a month old feed cracked corn or wheat screen- 
 ings at night. Always season their soft food with pepper 
 and salt, as if preparing it for your own use, but on cold or wet 
 days add more pepper. 
 
 Fig. 20 represents an artificial mother for out-door use, and 
 a wire run for the chicks. It is very simple in its construction ; 
 it is made on the same principal as the mother previously des- 
 cribed, excepting the bottom is separate from the body of the 
 coop, which can be removed to clean. It is very important that 
 it should be kept free from the droppings of the chicks, for if 
 they are allowed to accumulate they will breed lice. If the 
 weather should be too cold for the comfort of the chicks then a 
 jug of hot water should be placed within the box ; this will not 
 be necessary unless very cold, as a large number of chicks hud- 
 dled together will generate a considerable amount of heat. 
 
 The following description of the Jacques incubator has been 
 extensively sold for oOc, the price of this whole work. We do 
 not consider this Jacques machine as of any value for practical 
 business. 
 
 " In order to make the incubator herein described, you 
 need only the following articles: a good sugar barrel, a round 
 tin clothes boiler about twelve inches deep see Fig. 1, a tin milk 
 
 pan, see l^ig. 2 and a kerosene lamp with chimney. Have a bar- 
 rel without a head, place in it the boiler, which must be the size 
 of the barrel so it can be supported in its place by its rim resting 
 on the chime of the barrel. The pan must be of such a size, as 
 when it is placed in the boiler (as in Fig. 3) it will have a space 
 of about five inches between it and the bottom of the boiler. It 
 will be necessary to solder the pan in this position. All the 
 space between the pan and the boiler must be filled with water ; 
 this can be done by punching a small hole in the side of the pan 
 near the top, and inserting a funnel. It will not be necessary to 
 lefill in three weeks, as the evaporation is so slow yovi will not 
 lose a quart. Make a door in the side of the barrel near the bot- 
 tom, of sufficient size to admit the placing of the lamp under the 
 boiler. Cover the outside of the barrel with four or five thicknesses 
 of paper, well pasted on, to secure heat in the barrel. Bore two 
 one-inch holes in the lower part of the barrel, one on each side, 
 with tubes running from them to the base of the burner of the 
 lamp, in order that the lamp may have a supply of oxygen to 
 
-83— 
 
 support the flame. Bore three half-inch holes near the top of the 
 barrel, to allow the gas to escape. The cover must be lined 
 and wadded, so it will fit tightly to the boiler, then 
 the heat cannot escape. Cut a hole in the cover 3x4 
 inches, paste a piece of glass over it; directly under this place 
 the thermometer (which can lie on the upper shelf of eggs), then 
 you can ascertain the temperature without removing the cover; 
 also bore two one-inch holes through the cover, insert a tin tube 
 in each for the purpose of ventilating the egg-chamber. Inside 
 the pan is the egg-chamber, which is of sufficient depth to allow 
 
 three layers of eggs ; cover the bottom of the pan with a thin 
 layer of cotton, on which place the first layer of eggs, and at 
 equal distance apart around the edge of the pan, pixt three blocks 
 of wood about two inches 'square, on which place a round sieve 
 with one-half or three-quarters inch meshes; on the top of this 
 put another sieve larger than the first, so the rim of the lower 
 one will support it. Cover the bottoms of the sieves with a piece 
 of a coffee bag or some other light material, so the heat can pass 
 up through it. The tubes to supply the lamps with air can be 
 made by wrapping a piece of hardware paper around a broom 
 handle three times, pasting it together; after the paste becomes 
 dry, slip it off. 
 
 Place the lamp under the boiler, turn on a good flame ; when 
 the mercury runs up to one hundred reduce the flame so it can 
 just be seen above the cone of the lamp ; keep the temperature at 
 one hundred and three the first week, at one hundred the second, 
 and ninety-eight third week. It is very easy to regulate, provided 
 the temperature of the room is not subject to much variation. 
 In case of very cold weather, close the ventilators at night and 
 place a heavy woolen cover over the whole incubator. 
 
 As the eggs need a certain amount of moisture, they should 
 be lightly sprinkled with warm water every day, or as often as is 
 
—84— 
 
 needed ; a good way to ascertain the amount of moisture in the 
 egg-chamber is by keeping in it a small piece of the skin of a salt 
 codfish; this should never be allowed to get so dry as to crack 
 when bending it, nor to be so moist as to become wet, but should 
 always be so you can easily bend it. After the fifth day examine 
 all the eggs by holding them up to a strong light; if any are per- 
 fectly clear, remove them, as they are not fertile, yet they are 
 just as good for culinary purposes. 
 
 Do not place the eggs in until you have secured, and are 
 able to keep, the right temperature. I use a large bracket 
 lamp, and do not have to fill it oftener than once in twenty-four 
 hours. After the sixth day, turn the eggs daily, which can be 
 done by removing sieve ; this will give them an opportunity to 
 cool, as in the case of a sitting hen when off her nest. After the 
 chickens are hatched they can remain in the incubator twenty- 
 four hours, when they should be removed to the artificial mother. 
 
PART THIRD, 
 
 A I) VER TISEMENTf^. 
 
 
 (Patented May 20, 1x81.) 
 
 3000 CHICKS FROM ONE MACHINE 
 
 IN LESS THAN FOUR MONTHS. 
 
 rNVE;NTED, MANrFACTUKEI) AND SOLD BY 
 
 JAMES RANKIN, SOUTH EASTON, MASS. 
 
 This Machine has made tlie best public and private record of any Incubator 
 ever invented. It has never liatched less than 90 per cent of the fertile eggs 
 wherever it lias been exhibited in public. 
 
 The Monarch hatched 500 ducks and chicks at the great Pennsylvania Poultry 
 Show held in Philadelphia, September 24-30, hatching more than 95 per cent of all 
 
the ^ggs carried. These eggs were taken to Philadelphia in a trunk (a distance of 
 400 miles), the day before hatching. 
 
 The Improved Monarch is substantially built, calculated to last a lifetime, and 
 is the simplest of all self-regulating machines. 
 
 We heartily recommend it to everyone in need of a practical machine. We 
 append a few of the many testimonials from men well known to the poultry pub- 
 lic, and whose reputation for veracity no one can doubt. 
 
 TESTIMONIALS. 
 
 The MONARCH won the first Premium at the great competition of In- 
 cubators at Madison Square Garden, New York city, February, 1885, for 
 hatching the greatest number of chickens, and the best percentage of the 
 eggs, thirty-two machines competing. 
 
 The eggs were carried three hundred miles in a trunk the day before 
 hatching. 
 
 Tauntox, Mass., Jan. 21. 1884. 
 MR. JAMES RANKIN: 
 
 Dear <S//'.— We desire to thank you for the fine display you made with your In- 
 cubator at our fair hist week. It' was the center of attraction for all. The fact 
 that vou brounht about 400 eggs from Easton with the mercury at zero, placed 
 them in the Incubator, and had tliem hatching the next day, and got a yield of 90 
 per cent in fine, healthy chickens, is recommendation enough for your machine. 
 Wishing you the success vou deserve, we remain, 
 
 Yours trulv, F. L. FISH, 
 
 President of Southern Mass. Poultry Association. 
 PHILANDER WILLIAMS, 
 Vice-President of Southern Mass. Poultry Association 
 
 Waltham, Mass., Dec. 11, 1884. 
 The committee on awarding the prize of forty dollars offered by the Waltham 
 Fanciers' cluVi, for the best approved incubator in actual operation hatching 
 chickens during the exhibition, Dec. 9, 10, and 11, 1884, award the prize to the Mon- 
 arch Incubat<u-, invented and exhibited by James Rankin, of South Easton, Mass. 
 And rhp counnittee do hereby certify that the hatch was <!.5 yer.cent of 475 eggs 
 which were placed in the incubator the first day the exhibition opened; and that 
 the eggs were out of the incubator three hoiu-s and fif teeen minutes in transpor- 
 tation, and were transported forty miles by rail and four miles by carriage road 
 before arriving at the exhibition. 
 
 J. H. SWASEY, ) 
 
 W. E. SHEDD. > Committee. 
 
 GEORGE WOOLEY,) 
 
 Fall River, Mass. 
 Mr. RANKIN: 
 
 Dear ^!>.— Having tried a number of incubators and found them to be worth- 
 less, I was tempted to make another trial, and am pleased to state that the Mon- 
 arch purchased of you has been a success, having hatched as high as 90 per cent 
 of fertile eggs. My first trial with ducks' eggs was 323 ducks from 340 etigs, or 95 
 per cent. Yoiirs truly, R. G. BUFFINTON. 
 
 West Hai^over, Mass. 
 Mr. RANKIN: 
 
 Dear .S'//-.— You will be pleased to hear that we have got out .5000 chicks the past 
 spring with our two Monarchs— never hatching less than 90 per cent, and from two 
 hatches getting out 100 per c?nt from machines full of eggs; hatching every egg 
 with the least sign of fertility. And with good eggs can do the same thing every 
 time. Yours truly, E. F. DWELLEY. 
 
 Brocton, Mass., June 11, 1885. 
 Mr. JAMES RANKIN: 
 
 Dear >S'/r.— The following is my experience with the Monarch Incubator : Have 
 hatchedwithmymachineoverl.. 500 chicks this season. My fir.st hatch I got 80 
 per cent; my last hatch, 382 chicks from 406 eggs. The machine runs to perfection 
 with me. The regulation is simple and positive, and there is \\a anxiety to be felt 
 about it. I look at the machine morning, noon and night, and never have any 
 fear of its going wrong— in fact. I consider it the best machine in the market. My 
 chicks are all strong and healthy, and are pronounced by all visitors to be as fine 
 a flock of chicks as they ever saw. Wliat more can I say? C. O. TRTRON. 
 
Melrose, Conn., July, 1885. 
 Mr. JAMES RANKIN: 
 
 Dear >&'//•.— The Nt>. 2 Monarch Incubator that I bought of you last winter has 
 been used (liu'ing the season with good success, giving a better percentage than 
 the average of eggs set under hens, and as nice chicks as were ever liatched in the 
 natural manner. In fact, my chicks were the admiration of all who saw them in 
 the machine. Many visitors saw the Monarch in full operation, and I cannot re- 
 call a single Instance of disapproval from anyone. The simplicity of your regula- 
 tor, and the absolute certainty with whicli ii o))erates, delitrhled all who sawit, 
 and was highly conunended. That it is a self-regulator I (••in show liy my record. 
 I have left the Monarch from 5.:j0 a. :\r., until 8 P. m.. utuitti'n.l^d. and fouiid a dif- 
 ference of only one-half degree in temperature. And more than this, I have run 
 the machine for several days at a time without any cliangf* of temperature. Give 
 the Monarch ordinary care, and no one needs to be afraid of roasting eggs, or of 
 burning up his machine and buildings. It is a pleasure to use your machine, as it 
 does the work of fifty old hens, with a tithe of the labor: and I venture to say, 
 will hatch more chicks. The distribution of heat in the e<?g-chamber is perfect, 
 and the arrangement of the egg-drawers is excellent. The Monarch is worthy of 
 the sjjlendid reputation that it has already obtained, and as a first-class machine I 
 heartily recommend it to all. 
 
 Yours truly, V. C. ABBE. 
 
 South Easton, Mass.. August. 1885. 
 JAMES RANKIN. ESQ,; 
 
 Dear iS'lr.— Sometime ago you asketl me how the Monarch Incubator worked. 
 In answer I have to say, that it works even better than I expected it would. I had 
 had no experience with incubators, and was obliged to commence at the begin- 
 ing; and was also obliged to pick up the eggs here and there, wherever I co'iild 
 find them. Iliad eggs of six different parties. With these disadvantages, I suc- 
 ceeded in hatching 409 chicks from 460 fertile eggs. 
 
 The machine works even; the temperature is uniform throughout. I feel quite 
 satisfied that when I can have new etrus from our own hens, "the Monarch will 
 hatch every fertile eg9i., every time. I liad taken some pains to examine several 
 kinds of incubators— had taken note of their work, and also taken some evidence 
 of the work from their owners; so that I have no vague idea of what constitutes 
 a flood incubator, ami have no hesitation in saying that for practical utility, taking 
 all in all, the MouarcU is decidedly the best. 
 
 Yours truly. OUILFORD WHITE. 
 
 North Middleboro', Mass., .Tan. 14, 1884 
 Mr. RANKIN: 
 
 Dear Sir.— I am very much pleased with your incul)ator; it is doing even better 
 than I anticipated. I have got out over fiOO chicks within the last six weeks. My 
 last hatch was 215 good, strong, healthv chicks from 250 eggs. 
 
 Yours truly, Mrs. ADDISON SHAW. 
 
 This lady, since writing the above, has up to March 20th, got ont 900 more chicks 
 with this machine, making 1.500 in all. 
 
 The Improv.ed Monarch Incubator 
 
 Is constructed with two cases— the outer one of wood, the inner of galvanized 
 iron,— with an inch dead air space and heavy sheathing paper lietween. It is fur- 
 nished with three doors,— the two inner ones of glass, the outside of wood,— while 
 the tank, which is of galvanized iron, and is the source of heat, is packed above 
 and at the sides with heavy hair felting an inch thick. It is of the best workman- 
 ship throughout; while every means has been used to render it a complete ma- 
 chine, impei-vious to outside temperature. It embraces the four cardinal points 
 which are absolutely necessary to success in every incubator. 
 
 Fit\<if.— It is a complete self-regulator. 
 
 SecoTid.— There is a perfect uniformity of temperature in every part of the egg- 
 chamber. 
 
 T/iird.— It is so arranged as to give the operator control of any given egg-drawer, 
 to raise or lower the temperature at will. 
 
 Fourth.— It generates its own hun^.idity of atmosphere, thus avoiding the neces- 
 ity of sprinkling the eggs, or the use of wet cloths. 
 
 The boiler, tank and pipes are connected together with brass unions, and can be 
 easily detached. The whole machine is so constructed that it can be taken apart 
 in a few minutes. 
 
 Send for Circular. 
 
 JAMES RANKIN, 
 
 SOUTH EASTON, MASS. 
 
• CHICKENS* 
 
 ARTIFICIALLY HATCHED AND RAISED 
 
 PERFBCT 
 
 Are the Strongest and Healthiest, 
 
 AND OBTAIN THE HIGHEST PRICES. 
 
 Chickens by our system can be hatched and raised to tliree months of age, 
 at a cost of five to eiglit cents per pound. The prices ol)taiiied are from 20 to 80 
 cents per pound the year through. 
 
 CAN YOU SEE THE PROFIT? 
 
 The artificial production of poultry is daily incre-isin r i'.i poj.ularity, and is des- 
 tined to become a ureat and remunerative industry. It is a business suitable for 
 
all classes of people, and can be conducted with success by the clergyman and 
 his family, as well as the farmer and fancier. It is easily managed, and is already 
 carried on by the sons and daughters of many prominent aitizeus as well as me- 
 chanics, etc. The invention of 
 
 The Perfect Hatcher and Brooder 
 
 Has completely revolutionized this trade and thousands of chickens are now be- 
 ing hatched weekly to be sold as broilers, for which there is an ever increasing 
 demand, at such prices as cannot fail to be remunerative. 
 
 The great problem, never before solved, is how can a young man with a moder- 
 ate income and a growing family, and a wife who is ambitious to assist in earning 
 and support of family— how can she do her share and still remain at home to care 
 for the children and house. 
 
 THIS PROBLEM IS NOW SOLVED BY OUR SYSTEM. 
 
 Anyone with a good, ordinary city lot, say 60 x 125 feet, can put up a building 
 that will hold and raise to three months of age 2,600 chicks, and place in the mar- 
 ket at least 800 chicks per month, on an average profit of 20 cents each, eight 
 months in the year; they can use our Portable Brooder, if on a rented spot, and 
 place 400 chicks in the mai'ket per month, from same space. This business also 
 commends itself to widows with a growing family— clergymen, old people who 
 can do light work, and a host of others to whom most avenues of employment are 
 closed, and remain at home and be independent. The market for this product is 
 uiKiuestioned. See our large circular for facts on this point. 
 
 The largest part of our trade to-day is from our old customers, which is 
 
 PROOF POSITIVE OF THE MERITS OF OUR SYSTEM. 
 
 Our incubator is known throughout the world as the standard incubator. We 
 have during the past year filled orders for the Ostrich Farms in California, be- 
 sides others for export to the following countries : Japan, Constantinople, Tur- 
 key; Brazil, Panama, New Zealand, Gibralter and Barcelona, Spain; Sweden, 
 England, Paris, France; Mexico, Sandwich Islands, and many other parts of the 
 world. All this in addition t(f our domestic trade, which extends to every part ol 
 the Union. We can furnish testimonials by the hundreds— they come in every 
 mall. 
 
 d^^ For further facts and information, address, 
 
 THE PERFECT HATCHER CO., 
 
 ELMIRA, NEW YORK, 
 
~T H K- 
 
 BROODKR 
 
 IN OFFERING OUR BROODER, 
 
 With its Latest Improvements, 
 
 We are Confident it is in Every Respect 
 
 What its name implies. We are conscioiis that our earlier plans of brooders 
 were not a success; hut it took time to develop all their defects. We 
 therefore have heen steadily advancing, until uowwe know it will do its work 
 successfully, and is the successor and 
 
 RIVAL OF THE NATURAL BROODER— THE HEN. 
 
 It is well known by all how she broods her chicks, viz., she sits upon the ground; 
 the chicks rim imder and aroimd her body, with which they come in contact; 
 tliey are enveloped in her feathers and are surrounded on all sides by her warmth. 
 She even warms the ground slightly, and thus keeps their feet and legs warm, 
 which we find to he of the utmost importance. It would therefore seem that from 
 the teachings of the mother hen, a successful brooder should long ago have been 
 
devised, but strange as it may seem, we have all gone asii-ay. But we claim now 
 to have solved the problem. The successful brooder must be 
 
 BASED UPON THE PRINCIPLE OF THE HEN, 
 
 Viz: A comfortable warmth suirouudiny the chick, a warm floor — but not too 
 warm— and a comfortably warm atmosphere surroaiidiny: the chick. The chick 
 needs to lie down and sleep like any other animal. They cannot lie down on a 
 cold floor; it must be warm or they* will huddle together, and then the mischief is 
 to pay. The atmosphere must be warm or they will suffer. There must be good 
 ventilation, and constant, or they will be 
 
 POISONED BY THEIR OWN CARBONIC GAS, 
 
 The same as would i-esult from a dozen people sleeping in a small room with all the 
 doors and windows closed. The brooder must be portable ; it must be placed on 
 the ground, so the chicks can run in and out at their pleasure on pleasant days; 
 it must be storm proof , and proof against all animals dangerous to chickens; it 
 must have 
 
 AMPLE ROOM FOR THE CHICKS, 
 
 So they can be kept inside on all cold and rain>' days; it must have a glass run, so 
 that when the wind is sharp in March and April, November and December, the 
 chicks can bask in the sunshine and bid defiance to the cold and shivery winds. 
 It must be of that adjustable character to circumstances and seasons, that it can 
 be placed in a building of any suitable character, or out on the lawn, or in the 
 field, at the 
 
 PLEASURE AND CONVENIENCE OF THE OWNER 
 
 It must be so arranged that a person can i-aise the largest number of chicks pos- 
 sible, in a state of health, on the smallest possible .spot of ground. 
 
 SUCH A BROODER 
 
 We offer to the public, to whom we ai)i)eal to judge it upon its merits and with 
 good common sense. 
 
 Our system of brooding is in every respect equal to our system of hatching, and 
 we can show thnt a loss of five per cent in raising is too large, if proper care is 
 given. 
 
 WE INVITE ALL INTERESTED TO CALL AND 
 SEE US, 
 
 See our factory, our Ijrooding house, which holds 3,500 chickens, and seethe 
 chickens themselves. We cm prove what we claim. 
 All information free. 
 
 PERFECT HATCHER CO., 
 
 ELMIRA, N. Y. 
 
The First Successful Self-regulating-'Iucubator Ever Constructed 
 
 TEN YEARS OF UNVARYING SUCCESS 
 
 Winning- FlKST PREMirM in every Competition for Xine Yeai-s. 
 
 PerfeGt*in*RegalaliGr],*¥enlilali0n*and^M0i5ttjre, 
 
 ALL IMITATE! NONE EQUAL IT! 
 
 :,ss.£^/r6. Coa 
 
 Simple, Durable, Reliable and Beautiful, 
 
 Ami will positively harcli the largest percentaore of Strong, Healthy Chicks of any 
 Machine in the market. 
 
 PRICES. FROM !S20 UPWARDS. 
 
 (d'/^llTl^TE^^K^ (1^ ^^^^ capacity of from 20 to 500 Chicks. Five 
 M3' M3' '-Uj' ^ JJi^ :Jl&,: ^Sl^ different styles, either top or bottom heat. 
 PRICES FROM *;.T rPWARDS. Serul stamp for circulars to 
 
 CENTENNIAL l^vIANUFACTURING COMPANY, 
 
 Box 370, Rye, N. Y. 
 
 N. B.— Mr. Halsted has hart 35 years' experien«e in Poultry Raising, and over 
 20 years in Artificial Incubation. 
 
THE NEW 
 
 SUCCESS HATCHER 
 
 IS THE 
 
 BEST ELECTBIG REGULATED INCUBATOR 
 
 In the World, Without an Exception! 
 
 The Batteries Last Two Years Without Renewing. 
 
 NO CLOCK-WORK ATTACHMENT! 
 
 SELF-FEEDBNC SAFETY LAMP 
 
 ATTACHED ONLY ON THE SUCCESS. 
 
 THE NKW SUCCESS WAS— 
 
 Awarded FIRST Premium, 
 
 A DIPLOMA AND !»30, 
 
 At the Great St. Louis Fair in 1884 and 1885 in competition with the 
 leading machines in the market. 
 
 Before pmcliasing send for a circular. Address, 
 
 THE SUCCESS HATCHER CO., 
 
 LANCASTER, PA. 
 
C. V. CROSS, 
 
 MANUFACTURER OF THE 
 
 Western Incubator, 
 
 -AND THE- 
 
 OROSS 
 
 SELF -FEEDING INCUBATOR LAMP, 
 
 2117 AND 2iig STATE ST. 
 
 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
 
 Drinking Fountains, Egg Testers, Tested 
 Thermometers, 
 
 -AND- 
 
 POULTRY BREEDERS' SUPPLIES. 
 
-THE— 
 
 
 IS CALLED TO- 
 
 Poultrymen and Farmers 
 
 Swan' 
 
 TARRED FELT FOR LINING. 
 
 Cheap, Durable, Fire Proof! 
 
 SUITABLE FOR STEEP OR FLAT ROOFS. 
 
 CAN BE APPLIED BY ANYONE. 
 
 COSTS LESS THAN TIN, SLATE OR SHINGLES. 
 
 Is being Used by Farmers and Poultrymen 
 in Every Part of the United States. 
 
 Send for samples and cii'cnlar "'How to Build a Cheai) Poultry House." Mailed 
 Free on application. Mention this publication. 
 
 A. F. SWAK, 
 
 
 
 NEW 
 YORK. 
 
 46 Cortlandt Street, 
 
 ^ i,StANO ARO 
 
GALVANIZED WIRE NETTING 
 
 Poultry Fence 
 
 ONE CENT PER SQUARE FOOT, 
 
 FOR BEST QUALITY 2 INCH MESH, NO. 19 WIRE. 
 
 PRICES PER BALE 
 of 150 lineal feet: 
 
 .50 ^6 ^7.50 ,99 
 
 6 48 60 72 inch 
 
 for descriptive cir- 
 itli special discount 
 'JJiiiliSS^ lor large lots. 
 
 SSgllfl ADDRESS. 
 
 "^^ Peter Duryeei Co, 
 
 '^^ 215 Greenwich St., 
 
 NEW YORK, 
 
 IT IS NOW ADMITTED BY ALL WHO HAVE USED IT, THAT WIRE 
 NETTING MAKES THE 
 
 Best Fence for Poultry 
 
 AND THE GARDEN. 
 
 It is Cheaper than wood because far more durable (being coated with zinc 
 it cannot rust). 
 
 MAKES A HANDSOME FENCE, 
 
 Admittinsf light and air freely, and is easily attached to posts and boards by 
 small staples. We furnish Nettiuy;s of all sizes and guarantee them to be 
 
 THE VERY BEST QUALITY. 
 
 SEND FOR PRICE LIST. 
 
 PETER DURYEE & CO., 
 
 215 GREENWICH ST. \ W C U/ Y fl D 1^ 
 
 68 AND70VESEYST. / IlLII IU^^l 
 
• inml" 
 
 iimmi 
 
 ^ SELF 
 REGULATING 
 
 WITHOUT 
 ELECTRICITY 
 
 OR 
 CLOCKWORK. 
 
 AUTOMATIC 
 
 VENTILATION 
 
 AND 
 
 SUPPLY 
 
 OF 
 
 MOISTURE. 
 
 IT IS PERFECTLY RELIABLE, 
 
 AS SHOWN BY THE FACT THAT EVERY MACHINE NOW IN 
 USE IS GIVING GOOD RESULTS. 
 
 Simon Walsh, MontRomery, N. Y.. says : " My last hatch (from a No. 2, Ther- 
 mostatic Inciibator), was 200 Chicks from 218 E,'gs put in the machine." 
 
 William Newcomb, Tenafly, N. J., hatched 188 Chicks from 198 tested eggs. 
 
 Evert Purchaser is Delighted 
 
 And anyone about entering the Poultry business should make himself thoroughly 
 acquainted with the merits of my machine. 
 
 VENTILATING BROODERS 
 
 Apply heat at the bottom, through a perforated floor, thus securing perfect ven- 
 tilation and full supply of heat. Correspondence solicited. Address 
 
 Mention this publication. 
 
 E. S. RENWICK, 
 19 Park Place, NEW YORK.