No. 4.] SOUTH SHORE ROASTERS. 385 



With all of the above explanations, so that no one will be misled, I 

 will now try to explain what my conditions are, and how I handle my 

 incubators. The cellar is 12 by 26 feet, and 5 feet deep to the top of 

 the stoning, and the roof sets right on the stone work. The floor is 

 not cemented, as the tendency would be to make it too dry, and we 

 intend to keep the floor good and damp all of the time. The roof is 

 sheathed up on each side about 4^ feet on the rafters, then level across 

 the top, thus forming an air chamber, which helps to maintain an even 

 temperature in the room. For ventilation there is an imitation fire- 

 place in the stone work at one end, which leads up to a wooden chim- 

 ney, and there is on this same end a window 30 by 30 inches, which is 

 always open excepting in a driving storm, or when it is so cold that 

 the incubators cannot be kept up to the proper temperature readily; 

 the entrance is at the other end, with a door at the top and bottom 

 of the stairs, each door having a slide 8 by 12 inches, which is used for 

 more ventilation, and there is a small ventilator out through the roof. 

 There is no heat supplied other than the incubator lamps. 



In this room there are eight No. 3 Standard Cyphers Incubators, 

 holding from 380 to 400 eggs each, according to the size of the eggs, 

 of the 1906 and 1907 patterns, having the drawers for the chicks to 

 drop into after they are hatched, and the drop bottom; and they also 

 have an electric light placed close to the thermometer, so that the 

 temperature can be read easily and correctly. The temperature is 

 then brought up to 102^° and the eggs put in, which will bring the 

 temperature down again, but when it gets up to 102J°, which it should 

 do in less than half a day, the ventilating holes in the bottom of the 

 machine are opened. The lamp is filled and the char rubbed off (not 

 trimmed) of the wick, and any black incrustation that may have ac- 

 cumulated on the burner scraped off every day; and if the porous 

 brass plate around the wick tube gets fouled up, that must be taken 

 out and thoroughly brushed off. 



The eggs are not turned the first two days, but after that they are 

 turned night and morning every day until they begin to pick the shell, 

 excepting the days when they are tested. The heat is not allowed to 

 get above 103° during the first week, but during the second week it 

 will naturally rise a little, owing to the animal heat that ^^^ll begin to 

 develop in the eggs; but if it goes much above 103°, take the eggs out, 

 or leave the door open and cool them down again. About the time 

 they begin to pick out, if the heat goes up to 104^° or 105° of its own 

 accord let it remain; but if it goes any higher, bring it back with the 

 regulator, but do not open the door. 



The chicks are not allowed to drop down into the drawers until they 

 are nearly all hatched, as there is fjuite a difference in the temperature 

 in the two places, and by keeping them up on the tray until a good 

 part of them are thoroughly dried off and smart, then the smartest 

 ones will come to the front, and so many of them drop down in so short 

 a time that none of them get injured by the change of the temperature, 



