384 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



before them all of the time in troughs or hoppers, and of course 

 plenty of good water, shells, charcoal and plenty of green stuff in some 

 form, — clover, alfalfa, rowen hay, cabbages, mangels, beets, or any 

 of the many things that are the most available about the farm. Then 

 the eggs should be gathered at least once a day, and in cold weather 

 often enough so that they do not get chilled, every egg being marked 

 with the number of the pen in which it was laid, so that when there 

 are sufficient eggs to set a machine, a record can be made of how many 

 eggs came from each pen. 



In starting the incubator, the manufacturers' directions are suffi- 

 cient, and their instructions for operating are as good as can be given 

 in a general way for all parties and all conditions; but right here is 

 where the difficulty, the mystery, and all of the varied opinions and 

 controversies begin. If it were possible to have the very same condi- 

 tions in every one's incubator room, the same instructions would 

 apply to all ; but until then, no rigid, fixed, arbitrary rule can produce 

 the best results. To illustrate the different conditions that it is possible 

 to obtain, divide the humidity into the following classes, — very wet, 

 wet, damp, normal, dry, and very dry; then divide the ventilation 

 into very poor, poor, fair, good, and very good; then make as many 

 divisions of the temperature, from freezing to 85° or 90° above; now 

 figure up the number of combinations that there are in all of the 

 above features, and see what the little, insignificant embryo chick 

 must contend with before the operator begins to manipulate the ma- 

 chine at all. 



In starting an incubator, the best thing to do — and it is not diffi- 

 cult — is to follow the manufacturers' directions, and then by careful 

 experiments, and records of them correctly kept, ascertain just how 

 the best results can be obtained under one's own conditions. Now 

 this seems to leave the party seeking information right where he began, 

 but it does not if he thoroughly "digests" it, or grasps the writer's 

 idea. Suppose a party buys his first incubator, and before starting it 

 he goes to half a dozen different poultrymen, all equally successful, 

 and finds out just how each one is running his machines; the chances 

 are more than even that there will not be two of them that are doing 

 exactly alike, and the party finds himself more bewildered than ever, 

 when as a matter of fact they have all been honest with him, and are 

 doing the very best that can be done under their conditions. For in- 

 stance, one may run his as high as 104°, and perhaps is "airing" or 

 " cooling " the eggs a great deal; where another may run his from 102^" 

 to 103°, and is not airing his eggs at all; again, one may not supply 

 any moisture at all, where another will be sprinkling them twice a 

 day; and another has a wet sponge or some water pans in the in- 

 cubator, or a wet blotting paper around the heater, and another will 

 wet the floor down wet; then there are all kinds of ways of ventilating 

 both the incubator and the room, so that I will have to reiterate, as 

 above, that there is no one rule that will apply to us all. 



