Poultry Culture, Incubators, Brooders 



Their Advantages on the Farm and 

 the Profit Derived Therefrom < < 



Paper Read By Mrs. Rebecca Johnson, at the Farmers' Institute, Maxwell, 

 Wednesday, January 25, 1905. 



1DO not know that I can explain poultry culture, incubators, brooders 

 and their advantages on the farm and the profits derived therefrom as 



well as those who have more literary ability, although I have made 

 these a study for over twenty years. However, I will try to explain it to 

 you to the best of my ability. 



The people that are making money in this progressive age are those 

 who have the foresight to use the most improved facilities; those who fail 

 are those who neglect their opportunities. Success in any branch of agri- 

 culture seems to depend upon the effort that one makes to utilize the most 

 modern machinery and methods. 



The hen is a very good hatching machine, but very slow. Very few 

 people who depend upon the hen for hatching are able to make a commer- 

 cial success of poultry; it is like making butter from a large herd of well 

 fed cows, with the old fashioned up and down churn, or dropping corn by 

 hand and covering it with a hoe. and then cultivating it with one horse 

 and a single shovel plow as our fathers used to do. Tis true they made 

 good butter, and raised good corn in those days, but could a man make a. 

 livelihood for a large family raising corn in that way today? No, we must 

 have labor saving machinery, hence the incubator and brooder. They are 

 the poultryman's labor saving machines; they enable him to do business on 

 a large enough scale to make money, besides a living, and this is not all; 

 eggs command a good price and are ready sale for cash, all the year around, 

 consequently, we cannot afford to let old Biddy waste her time and energy 

 setting and raising a brood when we can do it just as well for her, while she 

 is laying the golden egg that fills our incubators, pays our store bills, and 

 furnishes a nice boiled or fried egg for breakfast. No experienced poultry- 

 man at the present time will undertake to rear fowls in large numbers for 

 the production of eggs and depend on the hen that lays the egg for incu- 

 bation, because those Mediterranean breeds, or non-setters as they are 

 usually called, such as the Leghorn and Minorcas cannot be depended upon 

 for natural incubation, consequently, artificial incubation must be resorted 

 to if we would make poultry culture for egg producing a success. Leg- 



