362 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



HATCHING AND BEARING CHICKS BY NATUBAL 

 METHODS ON THE FARM. 



BY JOHN S. ROBINSON, EDITOR, FARM POULTRY. 



A leading manufacturer of incubators is my authority for the state- 

 ment that there are in the United States and Canada about one hundred 

 and thirty concerns manufacturing incubators and brooders. Many of 

 these are small establishments, whose separate output is comparatively 

 insignificant, but the aggregate output of these small factories must be 

 very large, and there must be fully two score of concerns manufacturing 

 on a large scale, the largest turning out hundreds of incubators and 

 brooders daily. Though the total production of these machines for 

 the hatching and brooding of chicks is greater now than ever before, 

 it has for years been large, and when we consider that a well-made 

 incubator ought to last for a good many years, it would seem that the 

 increasing number of incubators and brooders sold must indicate a 

 general substitution of artificial for natural methods of hatching and 

 rearing chicks, and the early advent of the era to which some enthu- 

 siasts in artificial methods look forward, when the hen will have noth- 

 ing to do but produce eggs. 



The incubators and brooders sold do not necessarily represent hens 

 put out of commission as mothers. To just what extent they actually 

 displace hens it would be impossible to determine, but where they are 

 most used their service is either in supplementing natural methods or 

 in lines which could not be developed on a large scale by such methods. 

 The incubators and brooders sold also go very largely into the hands of 

 beginners in poultry keeping, who, without any actual knowledge of 

 methods upon which to base a preference, take the artificial method as 

 presumably the latest, most scientific and most up to date. Then 

 there are always poultry keepers expert in natural methods who for 

 various reasons want to try the other system, while the enormous 

 volume of advertising artificial methods keeps constantly before the 

 public, often in grossly exaggerated statements, the advantages of 

 such methods. So it might well be said that the great output of incu- 

 bators and brooders goes to meet fictitious as well as real demands. It 

 may also well be said that by different manufacturers these demands 



