ARTIFICIAL HATCHING. 121 



during the period from oOtli June, 1872, to oOth June, 

 1873, laid 188 eggs, wliich produced 133 cliicks ; of 

 these 18 died, leaving 115 young birds. Of these, 74 

 were sold at three months old for £16 each, and allow- 

 ing the remaining 41 to be worth only £12 each, we 

 have a return of £1,G76 from one set of birds. The 

 next year the same set laid 113 eggs, producing 77 

 chicks, and the first six months of the third year they 

 laid 97 eggs, producing 81 chicks, being over 80 per 

 cent. After this the cock was killed by a rascal for his 

 feathers. This was before my incubators were brought 

 to anything like their present perfection. But the same 

 price would not be obtained for chicks now, neither in 

 the last few years would so few of the chicks be lost in 

 the rearing. 



Even if a farmer does not intend to incubate as a 

 regular thing, he should have a machine and know how 

 to work it ; or else the first time a bird refuses to sit, 

 or comes to grief in the middle of it, he will lose 

 heavily. 



A notion was started some time ago, by the intro- 

 ducers of some machines, which worked with hot water 

 instead of lamps, that the smell of paraffin was injurious, 

 both to the eggs and chicks : but this is utter rubbish ; 

 if anything, the smell is good for them, acting as a 

 disinfectant, some of the most successful men we know 



