Home Production of Poultry. 343 



were informed that during: winter and early spring, M. Auclie 

 had sometimes upwards ot" one hunched hatching at the same 

 time, and that each turkey continued hatching for at least 

 three months. At a farm near Lizieux, I saw a turkey that 

 was then sitting, and had been so upwards of six months ; and, 

 as I considered it rather cruel, the hatcher, to prove the contrary, 

 took her off the nest and put her in a meadow, and also removed 

 the eggs : the turkey, however, to my surprise, returned imme- 

 diately to her nest, and called in a most plaintive voice for her 

 eggs ; then some eggs were placed in a corner ot the box, which 

 she instantly drew under her with her beak, and seemed quite 

 delighted. Moreover, I was informed that it was of great eco- 

 nomical advantage to employ turkeys to hatch, as they eat very 

 little, and get fat in their state of confinement, and, therefore, 

 fit for the market any day." 



The extraordinary advantages of this singular system ap- 

 pear in its cheapness — the sitting bird covering nearly double 

 the number of eggs that we commonly put under a hen, and 

 at the same time getting fat for market instead of famishing 

 in the process ; in the uninterrupted succession of chickens — 

 the hatching being completely independent of a broody con- 

 dition in hens, which is often delayed or interfered with by 

 winterly weather ; in the wide margin for failure in hatching, 

 and the certainty of none but large broods coming off at 

 every three weeks ; and in the power to get chickens from the 

 " live hatching-machines " at any season, and thus time them as 

 adults for the high prices of spiing and early summer, without 

 any troublesome and expensive provision of relays of pullets of 

 different breeds and ages, which must otherwise be kept for the 

 purpose. Undoubtedly we do need a good method of artificial 

 incubation, for other reasons besides those just mentioned ; as, for 

 example, hatching the eggs of fowls that seldom or never sit, 

 which is the case with the best French breeds ; for hatching (if 

 we please) the great surplus of eggs which the layers themselves 

 are incapable of covering ; and for hatching the eggs of heavy 

 hens which frequently disappoint us by clumsily breaking 

 numbers of eggs in the nest. If we could rear chickens without 

 brooding, scratcliing, and care-taking mothers, as easily as we 

 can hatch them, our course of action would be very plain — arti- 

 ficial incubation would be advisable everywhere. Not that our 

 sitting-hens should be deprived of their natural three Aveeks' 

 repose : wise managers, instead of pressing their greed of eggs 

 so far as to damage the constitution of their birds, would set 

 them upon porcelain or other sham eggs. And until artificial 

 nursing has been made feasible in farmyards (it is now only 

 experimental in the establishments of amateurs and at the 



