the beginning of the first week. You have not 

 yet put any water in your pans but your moisture 

 gauge indicates sixty-five degrees of humidity, and 

 your thermometer one hundred and three degrees 

 of temperature. What is the matter ; why don't 

 you reduce the humidity? You place another 

 moisture gauge in the room where you operate 

 your incubator, and you find that the humidity 

 there is ninety degrees. You hang a gauge in the 

 open air out of doors and it registers ninety-five 

 degrees. You only want thirty degrees in the egg 

 chamber ; how are you going to reduce it to thirty ? 



There are some places in which, at certain times, 

 some kinds of eggs an be hatched without addi- 

 tional moisture, in certain incubators, but the 

 attempt would result in failure at other seasons. 



It is surprising how little some manufacturers of 

 incubators know about moisture. When you 

 attend a show where incubators are on exhibition 

 question the several exhibitors on moisture. The 

 machines are generally managed by the manufact- 

 urers or inventors or the purchasers of some 

 almost defunct patents. 



While exhibiting at the World's Fair, Chicago, 

 '93, we were astonished at the replies of some 

 of the manufacturers and exhibitors when asked 

 "why do you use moisture? What is it for?" 

 One said, "Oh, the hen sweats and moistens the 

 eggs, that is the reason." Another said, "We 

 imitate the hen ; she goes off in the grass and gets 

 the dew on her feathers and dampens the eggs ; we 

 must supply it.' ' Another said, * ' We use moisture 



