HOUSES FOR SITTERS. 69 



years had been spent on contriving good methods of 

 managing sitting hens, in place of the separate confine- 

 ment plan, there are thousands of persons all over the 

 United States, who have failed in attempts at artificial 

 incubation, who might have followed nature's method 

 with success. Incubators have their uses, but they are 

 only for the winter or to supplement sitters. A given 

 number of eggs can be attended to under Plymouth 

 Rock sitting hens, and a larger per cent of strong, 

 healthy chickens hatched out than by the use of incu- 

 bators, and with less labor of the attendant, the grain 

 for the birds costing less than the oil for the machines, 

 and the whole equipment of buildings, nests, yards, 

 runways and fixings, all told, costing decidedly less than 

 incubators of the same egg capacity and the cellars to 

 contain them. The incubator idea has been overworked, 

 and the method of nature underrated. The patent office 

 contains hundreds of inventions for regulating heat in 

 incubators, over which persevering mechanics have 

 racked their brains, but the animal economy in a state 

 of health, either in case of man or the sitting fowl, reg- 

 ulates heat to a marvelous nicety that puts all mechan- 

 ical devices to shame. Summer or winter, awake or 

 asleep, whether we are sitting still or at violent exercise, 

 though we may feel cold or hot at times, yet the ther- 

 mometer shows that the temperature of our bodies is 

 essentially invariable, cases of severe sickness excepted. 

 Then look at the wonders of the plumage of a fowl. A 

 feather is one of the masterpieces of nature. Combining 

 strength, elasticity and lightness, it is at the same time 

 a good non-conductor of heat, it affords the most perfect 

 ventilation, and, like the fur of animals, it both sheds 

 rain and repels dirt. A mole burrows in the dirt and 

 remains as clean as a coin fresh from the mint. It is 

 hard to tell which is the most marvelous production of 

 nature, an egg or a feather. 



