FIRST LESSOyS LV POULTRY KEEPING. 107 



agreement as to tlie circumstances under which incubators may be operated in dwellings 

 and such other places as people are likely to want to use for them. 



More fundamental objections to putting incubators in places not originally made for them 

 are that too often the surroundings are not what could be desired. When an incubator is 

 operated in a cellar or room used for other purposes it is too much exposed to outside 

 influences, and when a part of such room is partitioned off for the incubators, the most favor- 

 able conditions for the operation of the machines are seldom obtained. The chief fault in 

 such improvised quarters for incubators is the lack of suitable ventilation. A common 

 cellar is often but an ill ventilated place at best, and the air in it good only when brough in 

 in stronger currents than are wanted in an incubator room. When a portion of such cellar 

 is set apart for incubators the atmospheric conditions in that part are generally not made 

 better than in the main cellar. 



How far poor ventilation of the place in which the incubators are operated is responsible for 



A New England Incubator Cellar, 



weak chicks and for losses of chicks which were thought all right when they hatched, it 

 is impossible to say. Some of those making careful investigations into diseases of and mortality 

 among artificially hatched chickens are beginning to be very strongly of the opinion that a lack 

 of fresh air in the machines is one of the most common causes of trouble, and that this lack 

 of air is due not so much to faults in machines, but to the imperfect adjustment of the sur- 

 roundings that is, of conditions in the incubator room to the requirements of the machines, 

 and the impression gains ground that in future more attention will have to be given to the 

 balancing of external and internal conditions of the artificial hatcher. 



It appears from some observations and experiments made recently that the time may soon 

 come when directions for operating incubators will be much more comprehensive than at pres- 

 ent, the necessary variations for different conditions being tabulated so that the operator may 

 the better adapt the running of his machine to existing conditions. This may not be done with 

 absolute accuracy, but far better than by guess. Perhaps I can make the meaning more clear 



