234 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



It is readily seen from these data that the average cost of 

 keeping hens in the middle west and in Massachusetts is prac- 

 tically the same if feed is purchased at retail prices. This, 

 coupled with the fact that on that same date eggs were retail- 

 ing here at from 50 to 70 cents per dozen, and at 30 cents at 

 both Warren and Oshkosh, gives the Massachusetts producers 

 a great advantage. It must be kept in mind, also, that our 

 milder climate means a much higher egg production at that 

 time of the year. The farmers in the middle west who raise all 

 their grain have the advantage, as they can value it at whole- 

 sale instead of retail prices, but even then the difference in cost 

 of feed per hen would not be more than 20 to 25 cents per year, 

 which would be fully counterbalanced by the difference in price 

 of one dozen eggs during the fall or winter season. 



Modern Poultry Equipment. 



The rapid strides made in poultry keeping during the last 

 two decades have eclipsed that of most other lines of farming, 

 due largely to the efficient apparatus and equipment which 

 necessity has brought into use. When the incubator came out 

 a number of years ago thousands of people held up their hands 

 and said that good, strong, vigorous chicks could not be hatched 

 in a wooden box, believing, many of them, that the hen trans- 

 mitted to the chick through the shell, not only vitality but cer- 

 tain poultry instincts among which was that of egg production. 

 These notions have not only been proved false, but at the 

 present time the "wooden box" has developed to such an ex- 

 tent that we have incubators varying in egg capacity from 40 

 or 50 to as high as 20,000 or 25,000, and, as already stated in a 

 preceding paragraph, one hatchery in this State is capable of 

 incubating 1,000,000 eggs annually. 



The influence of the incubator is much greater than many of 

 us suppose. It not only enables us to hatch eggs in large 

 numbers if necessary at any season of the year, independently 

 of the hen, at a low cost and with a minimum amount of labor, 

 but one of the far-reaching advantages is the fact that it is 

 enabling us to breed the maternal instincts out of the hen. The 

 advantage of this can readily be understood when we realize 



