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excessively dry. For these reasons, a cellar or basement room with 

 walls so constructed as to be poor conductors of heat or cold and 

 not exposed to the direct rays of the sun is usually most satisfactory. 

 It is important that this room be so constructed that it can be freely 

 ventilated. In managing the incubator, it is best to be guided by the 

 rules and instructions sent with the machine. These are in all cases 

 prepared with much care after wide experience with the machines 

 and by the most competent men. A beginner should under no cir- 

 cumstances neglect to follow instructions closely. The man of expe- 

 rience may sometimes find minor variations advisable to better meet 

 local conditions. 



Where chickens are hatched with incubators, it is 



Brooders or the almost invariable rule to place them in 

 Brooder Houses brooders or brooder houses, though occasionally 

 Necessary with a person is found who prefers to give them to 



Incubators. hens. They will require less close attention with 

 the hens, but where chickens are raised in con- 

 siderable numbers, the labor of caring for them in brooders or 

 brooder houses is less than it would be with hens and one of these 

 methods is almost invariably preferred. 



The Station has not made any experiments 

 Outdoor Brooders, with brooder houses. It has for a number of 

 years reared a considerable number of chickens 

 annually by the use of out-door brooders. A number of different 

 types of brooders have been used, but no exhaustive comparisons 

 of the different kinds have been made. Among those employed the 

 Peep-o'day, Cyphers and Prairie State have proved quite satisfactory. 

 It is by no means an easy matter, however, to so regulate an out-of- 

 door brooder as to secure satisfactory results. With practically all 

 the brooders offered in the market, the regulation of the temperature 

 is a matter of considerable difficulty. Several automatic contrivances 

 for controlling the temperature in brooders have been placed upon 

 the market, but none of these have been found to satisfactorily 

 accomplish the objects in view. The variations in outdoor tempera- 

 ture are very wide. Exposure to bright sunshine will cause the 

 temperature to run up very rapidly; while, on the other hand, the 

 disappearance of the sun behind the clouds or the coming up of a 

 cool spring wind will cause an equally rapid fall in temperature. Out- 

 door brooders should, of course, be set in as sheltered a location as 



