274 AN EGG FARM. 



A. Hunt, whose success in artificial hatching we have 

 never known excelled : 



" When you receive your machine and get it set up and in running 

 order, take a whole day if necessary to study it in its various parts. 

 The regulating apparatus should receive particular attention ; do not 

 be satisfied in knowing that it does the work, but find out how it 

 works, familiarize yourself with every part, as it may be very useful 

 knowledge to you in future operations, for should your regulator 

 through any accident or without accident fail to work, you will be bet- 

 ter able to discover the difficulty and remedy it without delay.'.' 



As regards the style of lamp, use none that is not as 

 secure against accident as the best that can be bought for 

 money, because buildings, incubators, eggs, chicks and 

 all have in a number of instances burned, through defec- 

 tive lamps. See if insurance experts, who make a study 

 of such things, approve the style of lamp. Use the best 

 oil, 160 test, for to tolerate anything poorer in an affair 

 of this kind is bad economy, and keep the lamps nicely 

 trimmed. 



The regulators furnished incubators are of various 

 patterns and materials. A bar thermostat composed of 

 metal and hard rubber makes on the whole the best reg- 

 ulator, but it never can be as reliable as the heat of the 

 hen. Cyphers says : 



" In running an incubator, the leading feature, and the hardest to 

 secure, is an even temperature. This would not be the case had we a 

 good regulator, but we have not. Not only have many hundreds of dol- 

 lars been spent in experimenting, trying to get a good heat regulator 

 for an incubator, but many thousands of dollars have gone in like 

 manner to secure a heat regulator for other purposes that would be 

 controlled by dry heat, and which would keep the temperature con- 

 stant to a degree under all reasonable conditions. It is absolutely 

 impossible to mal*e such a regulator that will be delicate enough to 

 hold the heat to a degree, powerful enough to do the necessary work, 

 and simple and inexpensive at the same time. This has been and stih 

 is the aim of experimenters, but it must only meet with failure in the 

 future, as it has in the past. Whatever means is employed to regulate 

 the temperature of the hatching chamber, it is absolutely essential 

 that it should be kept within narrow limits. The heat and atmos- 

 pheric conditions must balance one another, and, if they do not, incu- 

 bation cannot be carried to a successful exclusion. My meaning is 

 simply this: Evaporation from the egg must be held at such a point 



