272 Atf EGG FARM. 



to be disregarded. The reply is, visit some party, not 

 an agent, who has run a machine successfully, and if 

 more than one season so much the better. Be sure to 

 find out the exact per cent hatched, and whether the 

 younglings stand up and face the music or are simply 

 "born to die." Learn the principles on which it oper- 

 ates as regards the three essentials, heat, air, moisture. 

 If possible interview more than one operator using the 

 same machine. If you cannot do this, examine the cat- 

 alogues and cuts of the leading manufacturers and 

 notice which gives a clear description of the modus oper- 

 and! of their incubators. Pay no attention to their 

 boasts but steer by what commends itself to your judg- 

 ment in the machines themselves. On the matter of 

 agents' representations the following is from that careful 

 experimenter and able writer, Mr. W, II. Rucld : 



"If beginners have a preference for any particular incubator we 

 advise them if possible to see one of them in operation, or to corre- 

 spond with some one who uses it, but if the person thus addressed is 

 an agent for it or has a commission in view, we should in our own case, 

 as the world now wiggles, take mighty little stock in his recommenda- 

 tion, or in any of his statements concerning it." 



A few words may not be amiss in this connection 

 regarding a test of the merits of an incubator by a pub- 

 lic exhibition of hatching. The dealer or his represen- 

 tative appears in the neighborhood about twenty days 

 before the show opens and starts one or two machines, at 

 nearby convenient headquarters, loaded with the very 

 best eggs procurable, tests them repeatedly up to the 

 time the gaping crowd gather to see chicks come out, 

 culls and selects from his machines on the side and car- 

 ries the pipped eggs (each one of which has the kick of a 

 mule in it, all the fair to medium ones though hatcha- 

 ble being rejected) to the show room, where a highly 

 ornamented and gilded incubator stands, fired up ready 

 to receive them, and make a hatch of 101 per cent, one 

 egg being double yolked. The machine run by the sly- 



